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 - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising: quartz cluster, collection number 309; baryte from Mexico, collection number 66; smithsonite from Ireland, collection number 287; cluster of gypsum blades from Mexico, collection number 31; calcite, collection number 592; cockscomb baryte with galena from Castleton, Cumbria, England, collection number 302; quartz from Lake District, England, collection number 538; siltstone from Table Top Mountain, South Africa; acicular aragonite cluster. 631 grams total, 43-75 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. Seven specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Mixed Polished Mineral Specimen Pebble Group [100]
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising: haematite, quartz, amethyst, aventurine, dalmatian jasper and others. 722 grams total, 15-33 mm
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Historic Collection of Mineral Specimens
Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Comprising: bismuth from Czechoslovakia, collection number 417; barite from Colorado, USA, collection number 570; pyrite on baryte from Brazil, collection number 122; bournonite and chalcopyrite on quartz from Peru, collection number 442; bornite from Mexico, collection number 62; pyrite and sphalerite from Silvermine, Tipperary, Ireland, collection number 413; cut calcite geode half from Brazil, collection number 247; chalcopyrite from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 193; quartz from Brazil, collection number 114. 1.57 kg total, 4.9-11 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. Eight specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising: amorphous silica from Italy, collection number 483; malachite on chrysocolla from 79 Mine, Gila County, Arizona, USA, collection number 590; cut agate geode half from Mexico, collection number 49; quartz geode from Mexico, collection number 308; cassiterite from Viloco Mine, Bolivia, collection number 602; colourless quartz point from Arkansas, USA, collection number 34; limonite from A40 construction works, Middlesex, England, collection number 508; fluorite with galena from England, collection number 139; chrysocolla from Mexico, collection number 357. 444 grams total, 32-63 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. Each specimen accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Pyrite Crystal 'Fools Gold' Specimen Group [100]
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising nuggets of small crystal clusters. 911 grams total, 19-30 mm
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Fossil Plesiosaur 'Marine Dinosaur' Vertebra Group
Jurassic Period, circa 200-145 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
Comprising two main bodies. 617 grams total, 86-96 mm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Fossil Flexicalymene Trilobite Cluster
Devonian Period, circa 417-354 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £247
An impressive mortality plate showing a tight cluster of Flexicalymene sp. trilobites. 3.3 kg, 21.5 cm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Historic 'Brazil' Azurite with Malachite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
Featuring variously coloured azurite crystals and small fibrous malachite crystals, collection number 272. 305 grams, 93 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 - Historic 'Scotland' Specular Haematite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Black variety with quartz and dolomite(?) crystals, collection number 269. 300 grams, 79 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 - Mastodon Bone Face Carving
Pliocene Period, 5.2-2.5 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
Displaying a later carved stylised face with exaggerated facial detailing. 102 grams, 76 mm
Private UK collection formed in the 1980s. Property of an East Sussex, UK, teacher. -
Natural History - Mixed Fossil Collection
Devonian-Late Pleistocene Period, 395 million-125,000 years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £46
A group of fossils comprising: four polished Orthoceras sp. specimens; two polished Goniatite sp. specimens; a Dactylioceras commune trilobite; a Hildoceras bifrons ammonite; two Littorina littorea gastropods; and other fossils. 1.3 kg total, 2.5-12.6 cm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Crystal Nodule
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
In enhanced dyed blue colour, opened to reveal the internal crystal filled cavity. 193 grams total, 51-55 mm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection.