Auction Highlights
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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'.
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Natural History - Historic Stunning Orpiment Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £4
Displaying vivid yellow and reddish orange colours, high arsenic content, collection number 267. 180 grams, 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. Accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Woolly Mammoth Bone Bead Necklace String
Devensian Period, 110,000-12,000 years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £156
Restrung using polished Mammuthus primigenius bone beads. 196 grams, 64 cm long
Private UK collection formed in the 1980s. Property of an East Sussex, UK, teacher. -
Natural History - Mixed Fossil Shark and Fish Teeth Display
Cretaceous-Eocene Period, 70-45 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £65
A glazed display case with mounted specimens of various teeth, vertebrae and ray palates, with identifying labels. 916 grams, 34.6 x 24.5 cm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Historic Pyrite on Calcite and Fluorite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Consisting of a cluster of cubic pyrite crystals on a matrix of white calcite and fluorite crystals, with a very small quantity of unidentified sky-blue material, collection number 609. 205 grams, 85 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 Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising: rose quartz from Brazil, collection number 320; calcite from Mexico on a granite display base; optical calcite; granite from adjacent to Ruislip Road, Greenford, Middlesex, England, collection number 402; granite from adjacent to Ruislip Road, Greenford, Middlesex, England, collection number 470; septarian nodule section from Horsenden Hill, Ealing, Middlesex, England, collection number 216; granite with high muscovite content from Middlesex, collection number 535; linarite with prosopite from Grand Reef Mine, Arizona, USA, collection number 549, with an old Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd label; zinkenite from San Jose Mine, Oruro, Bolivia, collection number 564, with an old Simon Harrison Minerals label. 760 grams total, 22-88 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. Six specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic 'Tsumeb, South West Africa' Malachite on Calcite Crystal Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £46
Displaying very small botryoidal malachite masses on pale green to colourless calcite, collection number 432. 106 grams, 84 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 - Polished Green Tourmaline Group
Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Comprising a quantity of over approximately 500 carats of tumble-polished green tourmaline crystals. 99 grams total, 5-13 mm
UK gallery, early 2000s. -
Natural History - Historic 'Laurium, Greece' Rosasite with Azurite and Smithsonite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £33
A complex specimen displaying botryoidal smithsonite coated with mamillary rosasite with a sprinkling of azurite crystals, collection number 494; with an old Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd label. 193 grams, 99 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 Ammonite Group in Matrix
Lower Jurassic Period, circa 200 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
Group of Promicroceras ammonite fossils in a sedimentary matrix. 144 grams total, 97 mm
From Black Ven, Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK. Ex old British palaeological collection. From a Leicestershire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Early Human Skull Replica
Sold for (Inc. bp): £111
Australopithecus Africanus cranium skull with hand-painted finish. 1.19 kg, 20.1 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.
Australopithecus africanus is an extinct South African species of australopithecine which lived circa 3.3-2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. Australopithecus, means ‘southern ape’. It is based on ‘australo’, a Latin word meaning ‘southern’ and ‘pithecus’, a Greek word meaning ‘ape’. The females grew to about 110 centimetres in height and males were slightly taller at about 135 centimetres. -
Natural History - Historic 'Peru' Rhodochrosite and Quartz Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £59
With pinkish white, pale pink and brownish black crystals, collection number 374. 335 grams, 11.4 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. Accompanied by an original historic index file card and an old James Walker label. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Comprising: hematite on amethyst from Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, England, collection number 280; citrine, collection number 326; an opened flint nodule from the Bramblings, Speen, Buckinghamshire, England, collection number 44; wulfenite from Mexico, collection number 446; garnet schist, collection number 189; orange calcite from Brazil, collection number 106; brochantite from Copiapo, Chile, collection number 393; gypsum from Sahara Desert, Libya, collection number 366; baryte from North Africa, collection number 127. 2.79 kg total, 6.7-16.6 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. Seven specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card.