Auction Highlights
-
Egyptian Granite Head of a Dignitary
Sold for (Inc. bp): £28,600
Carved with soft facial features and carefully executed cosmetic lines around the eye, earring, and carefully detailed duplex wig with gently wavy curls; likely from the Ramesside Period; mounted on a custom-made stand. -
Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Herakles
Sold for (Inc. bp): £18,200
Modelled in the round with a muscular nude body, his club resting on his shoulder and the hair dressed in rows of tight, close-set curls underneath the Nemean lionskin hood with cloak billowing over his left arm, the paws tied across his chest; mounted on a custom-made display stand. -
Roman Marble Portrait of a Boy as Worshipper of Isis
Sold for (Inc. bp): £17,550
Carved head of a prepubescent worshipper of Isis, with soft facial features, long nose, small downturned mouth, heavy-lidded eyes, the whole giving the face a sombre or mournful appearance; the hair textured to indicate a short cut and combed forward across the scalp, sidelock above the right ear; mounted on a 16th century carved breccia upper body with leather cuirass and pteruges to right shoulder, cloak draped across the shoulders and fastened at the clavicle on the right side with a disc-brooch; socle base; some restoration. -
Larger Than Life-Size Roman Bronze Sandaled Foot
Sold for (Inc. bp): £39,000
Modelled in the round and originally part of a monumental statue, the naturalistic right foot encased in a trochades leather sandal with median reversed tongue secured with side straps and thick looped laces; the thick platform sole slightly curved, toes and nails well defined; mounted on a substantial custom-made display stand. -
Life-Size Roman Marble Sleeping Girl from a Sarcophagus Lid
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20,800
Modelled in the half-round, nude with eyelids half-closed in sleep; a drapery partly covering the head and wrapping around the lower body under the hips; the hairstyle similar to those of the Antonine Dynasty, the peaceful face supported by the hands and the ear pierced to accept an earring; iron reinforcing rod to the feet and the right arm's armilla a later replacement; upper head restored in Parian marble. -
Byzantine Porphyry Relief with Cross Surrounded by Two Birds
Sold for (Inc. bp): £28,600
An imposing panel divided to four sections by a central cross on a stepped pedestal, the lower and upper arm with branch-like extensions; the upper quadrants with a circlet surrounding a palm tree-shaped motif; each lower quadrant with a bird in profile facing back; mounted on a custom-made display stand. -
Carved Marble Memento Mori Skull
Sold for (Inc. bp): £16,900
Carved skull on a short neck with musculature and blood vessels; mandible in place with some teeth in sockets, wisps of hair adhering to the dome of the skull; one zygomatic bone partly absent; square-section socle base. -
'The Kelton' Gandharan Head of a Bodhisattva
Sold for (Inc. bp): £24,700
Carved in the half-round head of a Bodhisattva (probably Maitreya) with fine detailing to the arched brow, aquiline nose, neat moustache and full lips; the eyes heavily lidded, urna to the forehead, long open lobes to the ears; the hair in multi-stranded curling locks gathered into an ushnisha with brow-band below; heavily cleaned, conserved, and mounted on a custom-made stand; supplied with original old wooden base with collector's label: 'Head of Bodhisattva / Fine grain schist / Gandhara, Northwest Pakistan / 4th century'.
-
Natural History - A Collection of Fossils
Devonian to Jurassic Period, circa 417-145 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Mixed group including Perisphinctids indogermanus ammonite, Goniatite and Orthoceras. 584 grams total, 7.4-15.5 cm
From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
Comprising: pyrite from Italy on a granite stand; granite from Middlesex, England, collection number 534; halite(?), no collection number; granite from the A40 construction works, Middlesex, collection number 502; basalt, collection number 225; bornite, collection number 178; quartz, no collection number; granite from adjacent to Ruislip Road, Greenford, Middlesex, England, collection number 462; an unidentified banded specimen, possibly slag, no collection number. 1.1 kg total, 2.1-10.9 cm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent. Five specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
Comprising: brown calcite, collection number 321; quartz from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 206; agate geode section from Brazil, collection number 57; talc from Tyrol Province, Austria, collection number 136; mounted on a display base; yellow sulphur from Mexico, collection number 73; cut marcasite nodule, collection number 163; calcite from Cirvela, Sinaloa, Mexico, collection number 249; baryte and quartz on chalcosine, collection number 389; chalcopyrite from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 253. 2.47 kg total, 7.2-11.9 cm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent. Each specimen accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising: pink calcite, collection number 40; conichalcite with chrysocolla from Ojvela Mine, Mapimi, Mexico, collection number 618 with old Richard Tayler Minerals label; quartz from Cumbria, collection number 19; cluster of colourless quartz crystals from Madagascar, collection number 67; calcite from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 316; actinolite from Norway, collection number 328; campylite from Carrock Fell, Cumbria, England, collection number 279; galena from England, collection number 234; chalcotrichite from Pendarves Mine, level 6, Tryphena Lode, Cornwall, England, collection number 571 with old Gregory, Bottley and Lloyd label. 433 grams total, 34-65 mm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent. Eight specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic 'Deccan, India' Stilbite on Heulandite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising pink heulendite crystals with a flower-shaped formation of white stilbite crystals, collection number 369, with an old Leolites India letter. 264 grams, 80 mm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent. Accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Fossil Ichthyosaur 'Marine Dinosaur' Coprolite
Early Jurassic Period, circa 199 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Irregular coprolite with tiny fish-bone inclusions. 32 grams, 52 mm
From Broad Ledge, near Church Cliffs, Lyme Regis, Dorset, 2004. From a Leicestershire, UK, collection. Accompanied by a copy of a previous illustrated catalogue page. -
Natural History - Knightia Fossil Fish Plate
Eocene Period, circa 56-33 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £46
A roughly oval matrix with a Knightia alta fossil fish. 70 grams, 10.5 cm
Acquired on the UK art market. Property of a Essex, UK, collector.
In southwest Wyoming (and parts of Colorado and Utah) in the Green River Formation are found some of the world's most outstanding specimens of fossil fish. The Green River system was composed of three lakes: Lake Ulinta, Lake Gosiute and Fossil Lake. These Eocene lakes lay in a series of intermountain basins formed by geological events that uplifted the Rocky Mountains during the early Tertiary time. The climate was much different from the desert-like climate of this area today. Both the fauna (crocodiles, alligators, boa constrictors and some subtropical fish families) and the flora (such as large palm trees) indicate a climate much like that found along the Gulf Coast today. Large amounts of ash found in the sediments indicate that volcanoes were particularly active at this time. -
Natural History - Historic Collection of Mineral Specimens
Sold for (Inc. bp): £46
Comprising: granite from near Harare, Zimbabwe, collection number 587; bornite from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 215; citrine from Brazil, collection number 55; schist from Skiathos Island, Greece, collection number 514; a large flint sample from Greenford, Middlesex, collection number 430; chalcopyrite from Cornwall, collection number 4; hemimorphite from Mexico, collection number 27; pyrite from Mexico, collection number 104; azurite and malachite from Mexico, collection number 75. 1.7 kg total, 4.1-12 cm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent. Each specimen accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Large Cut and Polished Blue Agate Crystal Slice
Sold for (Inc. bp): £59
In enhanced dark blue colour, the internal cavity with quartz crystals. 663 grams, 23 cm
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Petrified Fossil Tree Branch Group [50]
Triassic Period, 251-199 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Cut in varying lengths, with some thicker sections included. 1.13 kg total, 33-49 mm
From Madagascar. Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Amber with Insect Inclusions
Oligocene Period, circa 45 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £33
A specimen of polished amber with insect inclusion. 2.23 grams, 25 mm
Ex private UK collection formed in the 1980s. Property of an East Sussex, UK, teacher. -
Natural History - Mixed Architectural Mineral Specimen Group
Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
Comprising three marble samples, four semi-circular core sections and a granite sample. 3.15 kg total, 7.1-23.5 cm
Acquired on the UK mineral and fossil market, since 1970. From the historic mineral collection of Richard Valentine Cain, London, UK, thence by descent.