The book, between worn marbleised boards with black swans on the cover, was what appears to be Captain James Wallis own copy of his An Historical Account of the Colony of NSW and its Dependent Settlements, published in 1821.
This was an important descriptive work for the colony and especially Newcastle to which Wallis was attached.
It contains 11 small watercolours by leading early colonial artists including apparently Joseph Lycett. It also came with a number of other drawings.
The book was knocked down for that price to a bidder who had flown from London, England on behalf of the Mitchell Library, competing against a bidder on the phone and Matthew Fishburn of Sydney's Hordern House rare book dealership.
It was a rare treat for the crowd which had come along for its monthly chance to buy bric a brac in a town which has seen far better days. The town of 350,000 people had once been a major centre for the insurance industry and the home of Labatt beer, now part of an overseas based global company.
Catalogued separately, the lot was offered in the middle of the sale and it was at first hard to see the bidders as there was barely room to move. There is not a great deal to do in London, Ontario on Sundays.
But eventually the face of the Mr George Curteis, the man from Maggs of London acting for theMitchell Library became visible. The bidding was therefore drawn out, with Fishburn behind a partition. His position was not necessarily from choice in the closely packed crowd.
What must go down as a market-defining sale was bizarre in many respects. A two hour drive from Toronto, the sophisticated book, art and auction trade was entirely unaware of it and found the news that Gardner Galleries had achieved such a price incredible.
Mr Grant Gardner, who runs the auction house which sold the item, said that after the book and two associated lots had come to light it was clear that the market would be in Australia,
He had not sought any publicity in the US and but for a last minute visit from a report from an approach from a local TV channel, had not received any.
The book had been consigned by trustees of estates who, judging by a disclosure at the beginning of the catalogue for the antique sale, occasionally favoured the company, which had been in existence since and in family hands since the 1920s.
The Wallis lots had been found in a cupboard during a house clearance and it was not known how they had come to be there or in London, Ontario. The Mitchell Library is pressing Gardner's to find out more about is provenance. As a newly published book called Provenance fabulously disclosed, too much provenance can be a bad thing.
Mr Gardner said he is asking the consignors to see if they can help. There appears to be no problems with the pasted in plates but the large cut-out pasted figures of Aborigines are a puzzle. A book which was expected to settle some of the problems of attribution in early colonial art may pose more puzzles.
Perhaps Wallis will now emerge as a master of collage. Or could some child have obtained the book and played with it as a scrapbook?
Wallis is not known to have visited North America unlike his patron Governor Macquarie. But other material is vaguely remembered by old goatees of the trade as having come to light in Canada and found its way to Australia.
It is often said in the Australian art and antique sale that if an Australian treasure were offered in a tin shed at the back of Bourke it would still fetch as much as if it were sold in the glamorous surrounds of a city hotel.
The rooms of Gardner Antiques which sold the volume are not a tin shed but a Beaux Arts 1900 grey stone building opposite the main railway station. The notion was still proven correct.
The Mitchell had suggested the lot might go for $A1 million but as the number of cupboards containing rarities have decreased, prices have gone up.
Mr Gardner said that he had been approached by one party to sell before the auction but had declined to pursue the proposal..
He was acting for trustees of an estate, and estates liked to see a fair price established publicly as at an auction. The proceeds will go to a charity nominated by the estate.
Mr Gardner told the writer that the lot had been consigned without any reserve and the auction house had not given any estimates.
Export permission will be required under Canada's tough heritage legislation but no problems are anticipated as the work does not relate directly to Canada's culture. .
