A rare collection of communion silver – with some pieces dating back over 500 years – has just been bought for the City of Birmingham, in England, with the help of a £27,000 grant from the ArtFund. The collection consists of a rare pre-Reformation silver parcel-gilt paten engraved with the Manus Dei [Read More]
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David Gill, archaeologist, reflects on the fate of antiquities in the Kuwait National Museum during the 1990 invasion by Iraq. Professor Donny George, the former Director-General of the National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq has released a statement through “Looting Matters” about his role after the invasion of Kuwait. This personal account sheds [Read More]
A very rare signed scrimshawed whale’s tooth from Charles Darwin’s voyage on HMS Beagle, 1832-36, (£30,000-50,000) is one of the most intriguing items in the forthcoming Travel and Exploration sale at Bonhams on 15 September. It belonged to Private Thomas Burgess, a Royal Marine on board HMS Beagle for the entirety of [Read More]
Once dismissed as merely an afterthought, antique city maps are now an emerging segment of the collectible antique map market. Antique maps illustrate a window into the past, and city maps offer detailed layouts from hundreds of years ago that are often entirely different than what is found in today’s metropolises. Often [Read More]
The first auction to focus on the work of legendary jewelry Andrew Grima, since his death in 2007, will be presented by Bonhams New York on October 19th. British Royal jewelry, designer and artisan, Grima was the foremost modern jewelry designer in the West End of London in the 1960s and 1970s [Read More]
On October 7th, Bonhams New York will present a special auction devoted to Vintage mechanical musical instruments and automata. Featuring a number of rare turn-of-the-century orchestrions, including $4 million of property from the famed Mark Yaffe Collection, this sale is cause for huge excitement in collecting circles. An orchestrion is a generic [Read More]
The 20th Century Decorative Arts Department at Bonhams & Butterfields, as part of its ongoing design lecture series, is pleased to announce a gallery talk with Tripp Carpenter (Arthur Espenet Carpenter III) on Saturday, October 2, 2010, at 2:00 pm. The event, which will be held at the firm’s prestigious Sunset Boulevard [Read More]
Bonhams announces the sale of an extremely rare game, ‘The Game of War’ to be sold on the 13th October 2010 in Knightsbridge in the Chess, Playing Cards and Games auction. Dating from 1890, this intricate 600 piece game is estimated to sell for £1,500-£2000, and was designed to train British army [Read More]
A little known American Indian archive will be unveiled at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) through October 24, 2010. Ancestors and Descendants: Ancient Southwestern America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century will be the first comprehensive exhibition of nineteenth century photography, southwestern artifacts and archival research from the George [Read More]
On Monday, July 26th at 6:00 pm, Clarke Auction will sell over 350 lots consigned from estates throughout the Greater New York area. Midcentury Modern includes a desk and credenza by Jens Risom, a pair of Dorothy Draper bachelor’s chests, a Roche Bobois leather and suede sofa; Walnut Stereo Speakers on Saarinen-type [Read More]
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall will host a three-day Living Earth Festival, Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, that acknowledges Native contributions to managing the environment and sustaining lifeways and foodways. The festival will include an outdoor fresh-produce market, fine-art market, symposium, hands-on activities [Read More]
More than 1,100 of the world’s best coin and paper money dealers will be buying, selling and trading numismatic items during the Boston World’s Fair of Money held by the non-profit American Numismatic Association (ANA). The event, August 10-14 at the Hynes Convention Center, will be the largest coin show of the [Read More]
Following the success of Bonhams New York’s June sale of fine writing instruments, the auctioneers will present another exciting fine pen sale on August 19th. Consisting of just over 400 lots, the sale will include rare, limited editions pens by Montblanc, Dunhill, and Loiminchay as well as feature a number of Dunhill-Namiki [Read More]
The new Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) website has been shortlisted for the 2010 British Archaeological Awards. One of finalists in the ‘archaeological innovation’ category, the PAS website includes the scheme’s database of almost 600,000 objects found and registered by members of the public across England and Wales. The website, with a completely [Read More]