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 - Agate Crystal Geode Cut Half Group [10]
Sold for (Inc. bp): £65
Comprising ten polished halves showing grey and brown banding. 1.06 kg total, 49-59 mm
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Large Historic 'Brazil' Smokey Quartz Crystal Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £91
Displaying grey and light browns, and brownish white colours, collection number 387. 3.2 kg, 28.5 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. Accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Madagascan Fossil Lump Wood
Late Triassic Period, circa 25 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
A cut freestanding section of wood, polished to show the attractive banding. 604 grams, 11.2 cm
From Madagascar. From a Lincolnshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising: a large biotite specimen, collection number 101; septarian nodule fragment from Horsenden Hill, Ealing, Middlesex, England, collection number 216; picrite from Cornwall, England, collection number 426; sard from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 197; danburite from Maglovec, East Czechoslovakia, collection number 527; fluorite from Derbyshire, England, collection number 200; chalcedony from Cornwall, England, collection number 25; translucent from selenite from Sahara Desert, Libya, collection number 349; quartz 'sceptre' from Beaverhead County, Montana, USA, collection number 581. 292 grams total, 1.1-18.8 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. Six specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
Comprising: granite with high mica content from the A40 construction works, Middlesex, collection number 500; unakite from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 229; quartz from Cornwall, England, collection number 295; pyrite, collection number 592; granite, collection number 540; gneiss veins in quartz with two cut and polished faces, collection number 404; granite from the A40 construction works, Middlesex, England, collection number 506; grit from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 224; mica, collection number 366. 1.8 kg total, 4.6-20 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 - Lapis Lazuli Bead Necklace
20th century A.D.Sold for (Inc. bp): £33
Composed of graduated coin-shaped beads with a hook-and-eye fastener. 71 grams, 45 cm long
UK gallery, early 2000s. -
Natural History - Fossil Ammonite Section
Cretaceous Period, circa 113-100 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £39
Showing the internal chambers of the ammonite. 683 grams, 17.6 cm
English private collection. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
Comprising: ferruginous quartz from Cornwall, England, collection number 438, with an old Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd label; a cut and polished agate geode slice from Brazil, collection number 351; apophyllite from Poona, Bombay, India, collection number 176; brochantite on quartz from Bingham, New Mexico, USA, collection number 614, with an old Simon Harrison Minerals label; kyanite from Graves Mountain, Georgia, USA, collection number 616; wulfenite with mimetite from San Francisco Mine, Sonora, Mexico, collection number 488; a cut and polished agate slice from Brazil, collection number 364; a cut section of agate geode, collection number 32; eight specimens of brown crystal. 358 grams total, 24-74 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 - Historic 'Mount Ida, U.S.A.' Smokey Quartz Crystal Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £85
Consisting of very large, almost black crystals, collection number 607, with an old Geologisch Centrum label. 523 grams, 10 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. -
Natural History - Large Fossil Woolly Mammoth Tooth
Pleistocene Period, 2.6 million-11,700 years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £130
A complete Mammuthus primigenius tooth. 2.5 kg, 22 cm
Acquired on the UK art market. Property of a Cambridgeshire, UK, gentleman. -
Natural History - Polished Fossil Orthoceras Bookends
Devonian Period, circa 417-354 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £169
A pair of bookends formed from fossiliferous stone showing multiple goniatite and orthoceras fossils, two large Orthoceras sp. fossils set to the frontal face. 3.46 kg total, 16 cm each
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Section of Fossilised Wood
Triassic Period, circa 250-200 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
A cut and polished slice of petrified wood. 556 grams, 17.5 cm
English private collection.