Diversified lots a hit at fine arts sale
• Landscape paintings a big attraction, while a Georgian mahogany secretaire bookcase and bronze frog prove to be eye-catching
An early 20th century Austrian bronze frog, a 19th-century Chinese elm altar table and a vintage French zig-zag corkscrew were among the diversified lots on offer at the Westgate Walding decorative and fine arts sale in Kramerville this week.
The frog, with a brown patinated body and inset glass eyes, fetched R3,000; the zig-zag corkscrew received a bid of R250 and the altar table was knocked down for R4,500.
Of interest too were a 19thcentury English brass four glass table clock (R2,000); an art nouveau bronze vase; and a mid20th century ruby glass lustre table lamp (R650).
Painters Titta Fasciotti, Pranas Domsaitis and Walter Voigt were in top spot in the art section. Fasciotti’s signed oil on board of a Cape Street Scene fetched R9,500; Domsaitis’s unsigned oil on board Cottages
in Karoo Landscape went for R14,000; and Voigt’s oil on canvas Lowveld Plain with
Storm signed and dated 2012 went for R18,500. Norman Catherine’s signed lithograph The Luminous Fook Mook signed and numbered 77/100 was bid R4,000. Of interest too were Hennie Griesel’s signed oil on board, Still Life of Flowers (R4,500); Gerhard Batha’s gouache signed Extensive Landscape (R4,200); Diana Mallet-Veale’s watercolour Washday at the River, R2,000-R3,000 (est).
The eye-catching piece in the furniture section was a Georgian style mahogany secretaire bookcase with astragal glazed doors, leather writing surface above three long drawers and splayed feet. It fetched R14,000. The book The Wreck of the
Serica by Thomas Cubbin, about a famous tea clipper, was one of the collectable books offered at the Westgate Walding sale on Wednesday. The book — published by Dropmore Press, London, 1950, with the bookplate of MS Barlow — sold for R420.
Other books included:
● Emden, PH. Randlords, London, Hodder & Stoughton 1935 1st edition (R220);
● Van der Post, Laurens. The Lost World of the Kalahari, London, Chatto & Windus, l988 (R650):
● Meintjes, Johannes-Sandile, The Fall of the Xhosa Nation,
Cape Town, TV Bulpin 1971, 1st edition (R750);
● Gutsche, Thelma. The Microcosm, Cape Town, Howard Timmins, deluxe edition no 49 of 50 (R850);
● Bradlow, Frank. Thomas Bowler, His Life and Work, Cape Town, AA Balkema, 1967, 1st edition, no 44 of 100 signed copies (R1500);
● Curson Dr HH. The History of the Kimberley Regiment 18761962 (unsold); and
● Dutton EAT. The Basuto of
Basutoland, London, Jonathan Cape, 1923, signed by author (R850).