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 - Deep Blue Sodalite Pebble Group [100]
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
The pebbles polished and showing white veining. 246 grams total, 12-22 mm
From Brazil. Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Historic 'Grandview Mine, Grand Canyon' Cyanotrichite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £72
Consisting of tufts of fine acicular blue crystals, collection number 615; purchased for £35.00 at the 1986 International Mineral & Gem Show. 11.2 grams, 27 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 - Mixed Mineral Specimen Group
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising: granite, collection number 536; two tiger's eye pebbles from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 203; selenite from Sahara Desert, Libya, collection number 349; amethyst from Brazil, collection number 360; arsenopyrite, collection number 471; stained calcite from Ghajn Tuffer, Malta, collection number 41; hematite, collection number 154; chryspoprase from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 195; sand crystals from Canterbury Sand Pit, Kent, collection number 173; pyrite from, collection number 343; topaz from Madagascar, collection number 294; and a large number of other mineral samples without collection numbers. 761 grams total, 14-66 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. -
Natural History - Aquamarine Topaz Pebble Group [50]
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising natural unpolished pebbles. 575 grams total, 16-43 mm
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Fossil Mosasaur 'Marine Dinosaur' Jaw on Composite Matrix
Cretaceous Period, 145-65 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £338
A large section of Mosasaur prognathodon jaw with eight teeth, set in a composite matrix with applied plaster reinforcement. 2.32 kg, 48 cm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection.
The Mosasaur is an extinct, large marine reptile dinosaur with a snake-like body, long snout and paddle-like limbs. found worldwide, they competed with other well-known sea predators of the Late Cretaceous, such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, for food, existing primarily on a diet of ammonoids, cuttlefish and fish. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
Comprising: a cut and polished agate geode section, collection number 335; a large section of ignimbrite, collection number 87; quartz from Rhandir-Mwyn, near Llandovery, Dyfed, Wales, collection number 331; white quartz, collection number 403; schist from Skiathos Island, Greece, collection number 513; quartzite, collection number 86; siderite in chlorite from Devon, England, collection number 281; boulangerite from Noche Bvena, Zacatecas, Mexico, collection number 619, with an old Richard Tayler Minerals label; granite from the A40 construction works, Middlesex, England, collection number 503. 11 kg total, 7-19 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 - Megalodon Giant Shark Fossil Tooth
Pliocene Period, 5.2-2.5 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £286
From Carcharocles megalodon showing some serrations. 64 grams, 72 mm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Early Human Skull Replica
Sold for (Inc. bp): £195
Homo erectus cranial skull replica with hand-painted details. 1.54 kg, 22.5 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.
Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene Period, and several human species seems to have evolved from it. Homo erectus had a more modern gait and body proportions, and was the first human species to have exhibited a flat face, prominent nose, and possibly sparse body hair coverage. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £13
Comprising: a cut slice of amethyst on basalt from Brazil, collection number 95; gneiss from Scotland, collection number 81; a cut and polished slice of agate and quartz from Brazil, collection number 353; apple-green fuchsite from Brazil, collection number 58; calcite from England, collection number 102; a cut and polished slice of agate geode with quartz from Brazil, collection number 126; a cut and polished slice of stalactite, collection number 36; quartzo-feldspathic schist, collection number 169; quartz on sphalerite, collection number 180. 1.62 kg total, 4.2-10.8 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. Seven specimens accompanied by an original historic index file card. -
Natural History - Historic Fossil Knightia Alta Fish in Matrix
Eocene Period, 58-36 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
A rectangular matrix with a single Knightia alta sp. fossil fish. 333 grams, 11.6 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. Accompanied by an original historic identification card. -
Natural History - Fossil Seed Fern Pair Group
Middle Pennsylvanian Period, circa 300 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
Comprising two Pecopteris sp. fossil seed fern pairs. 175 grams total, 54-66 mm
From the Mazon Creek Fossil Beds, Braidwood, Illinois, USA. Collected 1930-1960. From the collection of the palaeontologist R Gledhill. -
Natural History - Fossil Petraster Starfish on Matrix
Ordovician Period, circa 485-444 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
Showing a complete and a partial Petraster sp. specimen; repaired. 711 grams, 15.5 cm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. Ex property of a Cambridgeshire, UK, gentleman.