Leski Auctions

Given their rich Australian heritage and enthusiasm for collecting Australiana, it is not surprising that the East Melbourne home of husband and wife team Gary and Genevieve Morgan - of Morgan Gallup Poll fame - is a living museum to Australian artworks, sculptures, pottery, wood carvings and furnishings.

Now, collectors worldwide will have the opportunity to obtain one or more items in this collection when Leski Auctions offers Part One for sale from 6.30pm Tuesday December 7 at The Gallery, Tonic House, 386 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

An abandoned Western Australian goldfields town called Malcolm has become the focus of Melbourne-based Leski Auctions two-day Australian& Historical sale because of a rare 19^th century brooch that came from the town and is now up for auction.

The brakes are off for Leski Auctions as they emerge from Melbourne’s sixth COVID-19 lockdown – that resulted in the city achieving the unenviable record of “world lockdown capital” with a total of 263 days of restrictions – as they head towards an international Decorative Arts & Collectables sale from 10am each day on Saturday November 6 and Sunday November 7 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.

Leading Australian artist and graphic designer the late Joe Greenberg provides an unavoidable reminder of the impending 2021 Australian Football League and National Rugby League Grand Finals and Melbourne’s forthcoming Spring Racing Carnival through his football posters and artwork as auction goers to Leski Auctions Sporting Memorabilia gather for its online auction from 10am Monday September 20.

Auctioneer Charles Leski will address an empty room as buyers log in online or via absentee or telephone bidding for the 856 items on offer.

Items coming to auction from the Foster Collection at the magnificent 1930s Mount Eliza mansion Dendron House are a true reflection of its beauty.

The home has been in the Foster family for six decades and each of the items being offered by Leski Auctions from 2pm Sunday September 5 is, in the words of the auction house, “new to the auction market”.

Each lot has been in the family for years with many arriving with Dr Bryan Foster and his family in the 1930s when they arrived from England.

Around the time that Captain James Cook was exploring the east coast of Australia, London silversmith Emick Romer was making a sterling silver epergne centrepiece stunning in its beauty and now considered extremely rare.

The son of Norwegian goldsmith Michelson Romer, Emick was apprenticed in 1749 and is believed to have left Norway sometime after 1751.

There are no doubt plenty of ways Australia’s national airline Qantas could celebrate the centenary of its establishment as a commercial enterprise this year.

For Melbourne-based Leski Auctions, its forthcoming Stamp, Coin & Postal History 738-lot auction pays tribute to the anniversary with a rare example (lot 278) of the mail Qantas carried in 1922 on its first airmail delivery flights.

In 2010, a couple purchased a promotional carton of Carlton Draft beer as part of a special “Win a Prize” competition.

The prize – a beer glass in 18-carat gold by Hardy Brothers Jewellers (silversmiths to Queen Elizabeth) engraved with the words “SINCE 1864 CARLTON DRAFT Brewery Fresh”.

Joseph Greenberg doesn’t fit the mould of the everyday collector.

Born in 1923 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond after his family escaped the anti-Semitism of eastern Europe, Greenberg studied graphic design under prominent established Australian artist Sir William Dargie and alongside fellow student and lifelong friend Ray Crooke – before in 1942 enlisting in the Australian Army and seeing service during World War II against the Japanese in New Guinea and New Britain.

A cute little pottery plaque by the late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (lot 178) is one of the intriguing attractions at Melbourne-based Leski Auctions Decorative Arts & Collectables two-day sale from 11am Saturday February 27 and at the same time Sunday February 28 at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.

The 1956 plaque, entitled Joûeur de Flute et Chèvre and from an edition of 450, appears in Alain Ramié’s 1988 Picasso catalogue of Edited Ceramic Works 1947-1971.