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 - Fossil Ginko Leaf
Carboniferous Period, 359-299 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £59
On an irregular matrix. 102 grams, 75 mm
From the Sentinel Butte Formation, Morton County, North Dakota, USA. From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Historic Mineral Specimen Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Comprising: quartz from Lake District, England, collection number 539; colourless optical calcite, collection number 245; acicular aragonite from Frizington, Cumbria, England, collection number 262; a cut slice of twinned stalactite, collection number 330; micaceous sandstone from England, collection number 182; quartz from North Transvaal, South Africa, collection number 206; siltstone(?) with partial collection number 05; olivenite from Tsumeb, South West Africa, collection number 428; cerussite and pyromorphite from Leadhills, Strathclyde, Scotland, collection number 526, with an old Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd label. 394 grams total, 33-77 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 'Tsumeb, Namibia' Wulfenite Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £52
Displaying colourless square plates on a sandy-grey matrix, collection number 555; purchased for £68.50 from A.L.D. Milverton, Cheshire, in 1984. 18.7 grams, 55 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 - 'Gem & Rock Centre, Zimbabwe' Mineral Specimen Sample Collection
Sold for (Inc. bp): £59
Supplied in the original box with typed label, comprising: calcrete, serpentine, yellow fluorspar, banded jasper, pink dolomite, rainbow jasper, pyrite, rose quartz, lipidolite, unakite, paisley agate, coral jasper, aventuring, yellow fire jasper; grey granite, carnelian, zebra jasper, white quartz silica, petrified wood and pink limestone. 300 grams total, 15 x 12 cm including box
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 - Polished Stone Ball
Sold for (Inc. bp): £65
Mudstone sphere with mottled surface. 93 grams, 44 mm
Found on a Roman site near Tattershall, Lincolnshire, UK. Ex old British collection. -
Natural History - Wind Chime with Cut and Polished Purple Agate Slices
Sold for (Inc. bp): £7
Comprising a large central slice with five smaller slices hanging below; in enhanced dark purple colour. 262 grams, 40 cm long
Ex Mineral Imports, London, UK. Gregory, Bottley & Lloyd (Gregory's). -
Natural History - Historic 'Sicily, Italy' Sulphur Mineral Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £78
Displaying vivid lemon-yellow and straw-yellow colours, collection number 340. 77 grams, 46 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 Otarion Trilobite
Middle Devonian Period, circa 380 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £98
Otarion sp. showing the characteristic high-stalked eyes and elongated spines. 70 grams, 59 mm
From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. -
Natural History - Large Historic 'Brazil' Amethyst with Quartz Crystal Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £117
With deep purple crystals and some small quartz encrustations, collection number 266. 1.26 kg, 16.5 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 - Fossil Reedops Trilobite
Upper Devonian Period, circa 385-359 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £98
A Reedops sp. trilobite on matrix, clearly showing the external structures. 230 grams, 88 mm
From the Hamar Laghdad Formation, Atlas Mountains, Pragian, (Alnif), Morocco, North Africa. From an old Oxfordshire fossil and mineral collection. -
Natural History - Deltadromeus Dinosaur Fossil Bone Group
Cretaceous Period, circa 90 million years B.P.Sold for (Inc. bp): £26
Comprising a clavicle bone section and a front leg bone section from Deltadromeus agilis. 295 grams total, 86-90 mm
From Kem-Kem Basin, Morocco. From an old German paleontological collection.
Deltadromeus had extraordinarily delicate and long limbs making it one of the fastest dinosaurs to have existed. This meat-eating dinosaur was an early off-shoot of the theropod line on northern continents that gave rise to Tyrannosaurus and the raptor Deinonychus. -
Natural History - Historic 'Paleleh, North Celebes, East Indies' Gold Ore on Quartz Crystal Specimen
Sold for (Inc. bp): £20
Displaying sandy-yellow, yellowish-white, white, and gold-yellow colours colours, collection number 121. 89 grams, 67 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.