Upcoming London sales include memorabilia from explorations and moremodern items of applied art
One of the most comprehensive collections of polar books ever seen at auction goes under the hammer next month. A major highlight is a copy of the limited edition Aurora Australis edited by Irish explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton.
Meanwhile, furniture from the collection of Eurythmics star, Dave Stewart, some of which are believed to be the originals featured in the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, highlights an applied arts auction next Friday, May 3rd.
The Christie's London Polar Collection of Andreas Züst features an extraordinary collection of books, pictures, photographs and memorabilia. It records polar explorations from the late 19th century to today. Over the past 20 years, Swiss meteorologist Andreas Züst amassed the collection, which comprises more than 2,000 books, as well as paintings, photographs and artefacts.
Irishman Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, born in Co Kildare in 1874 and educated in Ireland and England, set out to cross Antarctica using two vessels, the Endurance and Aurora. Shackleton edited the Aurora Australis, published by the British Antarctic Expedition in 1908. Never intended for sale, only 100 copies were printed.
A copy of the Aurora Australis in the forthcoming auction, signed by Shackleton, is estimated at £28,000 to £35,000 (€46,000 to €57,000).
Two copies of the book, the only book ever published on the pole-ward side of latitude 70°, were sold at Christie's last September. The first, presented to his wife, fetched £35,250, while a second copy went for £30,550.
Züst's collection boasts the largest collection of Ponting's exhibition format photographs (large-scale photographs) of Scott's last expedition to come to auction in recent years. It includes a rare portfolio of 12 large gelatin silver prints issued in 1913, estimated at £30,000 to £40,000.
Another highlight is Lieutenant Henry Robertson Bowers' photograph of the southern party at the South Pole in 1912, printed from a negative found with the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers in their tent on the Antarctic ice barrier in November 1912. Bowers' image At the South Pole carries an estimate of £8,000 to £12,000. It shows the downcast Scott and his four comrades at the Pole following their realisation that Amundsen had preceded them.
Meanwhile, Sotheby's second sale of applied arts and 20th century design in London next Friday, May 3rd, includes ceramics, glass, furniture, sculpture and silver.
It features more than 25 pieces of 20th century furniture from the collection of Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics pop group. Stewart, together with the other half of the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox, is credited with more than 30 million album sales. Stewart's collection from the 1950s and 1960s includes furniture, lamps, speakers and, yes, a fridge-freezer.
Highlights include a Djinn series suite, designed in 1965 by Oliver Mourgue, and identical to those used in the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Comprising two chairs, a chaise longue and two twin-back sofas, it is estimated at £3,000 to £5,000. A Malitte modular seating system, designed in 1966 by Roberto Sebastian Matta, is estimated at £1,000 to £1,500, while a Garden Egg chair - one of three in the auction - designed by Peter Ghyczy in 1968 is expected to sell for £300 to £500.
Elsewhere in the sale, a 19th century gilt brass candelabra by John Hardman to a design attributed to AWN Pugin, most famous for the Westminster houses of parliament, is expected to fetch £2,000 to £3,000.
Ceramics include a collection of Pilkington's Royal Lancastrian pottery. Among the 25 lots are seven sets of tiles, with a group of 85 early 20th century examples decorated with a simple heart motif, estimated at £700 to £1,000.
jmarms@irish-times.ie
