Australia's saleroom profile otherwise has been set back this year by the postponement of the annual Australasian painting sale which is usually heavily dominated by Australian material.
The upcoming item, the journal of HMS Myrmidon 188-89 is included in a topographical picture sale at Christie's King Street with an estimate of £60,000 to £80,000. The ship is one of many named after a Greek hero identified with persistence in keeping to orders, and the ship appears to have chugged along contently in this way, while many fine watercolours included in it were done on the way.
The journal is relatively late but then so was much of the break-through exploration of the northern tip of Australia that it covers. It is an institutional item, but obviously a not as readily displayable piece of Australiana as individual art works, and therefore has a more restricted market. One would have thought the principal aficionado of these, Mr Kerry Stokes, would now be a little taxed to pursue it as he has just has just outlaid $15.5 million on another much rarer and older book.
That was the Rothschild Book of Hours purchased at the same auction house. Hopefully for Christie's, buyers realise the possibilities of digitalisation which make it possible to display close images of many of the plates simultaneously.
Even a public library is not going to impress its ratepayers or taxpayers if only a page a day can be seen as was the case with the Book of Kells in Trinity College Dublin.
Sotheby's Paris is claiming an auction record for a piece of Maori art sold at its rooms in Paris salerooms at an auction of Oceanic art on September 17.
Unlike the Australiana on offer it is unlikely to be taken back to its place of origin for it would never be allowed out again. Maori art tends to sell for a lot more outside of NZ than within it because it is not "trapped" as it were by heritage controls. It was stated to have been bought by a European collector.
The record setting work was a pou whakairo Maori statue – whose face stands out all the more thanks to the tattoos and added hair – considered as the apogee of Maori art.
Dating back to the late 18th century, it was acquired for €1,441,500 ($1,864,854), just narrowly beating the previous auction record and admittedly only around estimate. It was one of a very small corpus of free-standing Maori figures.
The decision by Christie's not to hold an Australian painting sale this September follows difficulty in finding fresh offerings in the wake of the September 2014 deluge.
The deluge came partly as the result of great expectations created by the Australia exhibition being held at the Royal Academy. The exhibition attracted mixed reviews but the Australian sale still fared well. Mr Nicholas Lambourn, Christie's head of topographical art said it is expected to resume the sales next year.
The decision to move them from the lesser value rooms in South Kensington to Christie's main rooms in Mayfair was well worthwhile, he said, and it is to be hoped that in the light of Australian art's tarnished profile on the London scene this will continue.
Mr Lambourn also doubtless has hopes for other material in play, namely the collection of works done by Thomas Baines as a result of his membership Augustus Gregory's North Australian expedition of. 1855-57.
The Royal Geographical Society, which commissioned the large holding of oils and watercolours involved needs to fill a gap in its pension funds. Mr Stokes has been reported to be interested but asked for a reduction in the price.
The sale was held up under Britain's heritage regulations as a UK offer equal to the price agreed is looked for. No such offer has so far been made so it looks like they are available.
Mr Lambourn is the specialist who has done a lot in this department, having sold by private treaty the Earl of Derby's collection of early copies of rare colonial drawings in the Natural History Museum in London for around $7 million.
Oceanic art where the Maori statue was sold was greeted with lengthy applause at the Sotheby's sale in Paris, making the auction a landmark event of the season. 2300 people viewed the offering.
With an auction total of €7,530,838, almost US$10 million, this ensemble of just 49 works set a new world auction record for a sale of Oceanic art.
Sotheby's appears to have once again recouped the crown in this key tribal art market after years of continuing keen competition with Christie's. A majority of lots were the subject of intense bidding, both in the room, on the telephone and online,
The lot which has given a little added interest to the season in Australian art at Christie's is a journal of Captain Fole Charles Prendergast Vereker RN (1850-1900), done on the surveying voyage of HMS Myrmidon, North West Australia, April 1888 – January 1889.
The journal is illustrated with 77 of the author’s watercolours, 2 pencil sketches, 52 photographs and other related ephemera pasted or tipped in, approximately 160 leaves, 28 leaves with writing in Vereker’s hand and 53 in Ellen’s hand, folio (345 x 220mm).
Christie's concedes the photographs are folded and creased at times, some of the watercolours are loose.
The provenance is by descent from Charles and Ellen Vereker to the present owner.
It is poignant because of the many of the observations made on the voyage. On reaching Albany, sailing into Princess Royal Harbour, in March 1888 – it is observed to be ‘quiet and small, rather pretty’, with bungalows reminiscent of western cities of the States – and then Melbourne – where Vereker notes ‘how marvellously it has sprung up’ after its founding in 1836, with ‘omnibuses and cars equalling London’ – they weigh anchor in Sydney harbour in early April before transferring to HMS Myrmidon (‘my fellows are awfully disgusted with the look of their future home’.
Only Perth is living up to the challenge of serious collecting again with Mr Stokes plan to make the Rothschild volume a tourist attraction albeit perhaps in his own headquarters in the city where he has established a twin roomed gallery.
One Australian artist who is expected to make a splash at the coming topographical sale (which is separate from a book sale of voyages and explorations) is a John. John Mather, who was highly regarded in his day but now is regarded as somewhat secondary. An anonymously sited oil of a waterfall is expected to make £10,000 to 15,000.
