Submitted by aarAdmin on Fri, 05/31/2019 - 00:00
Works by two colonial Australian artists – Emanuel Philips Fox (1865-1915) and Ludwig Becker (1808-1861) – brought the highest prices at Leski Auctions Melbourne sale on Sunday May 26.
Fox’s Reclining Nude (lot 592) went under the hammer for $10,000 followed closely by Becker’s Melbourne and the old Princes Bridge (lot 596) for $9000.
A 19th century yellow gold brooch (lot 697) – featuring a kangaroo, emu, possum and bird – attributed to Lamborn and Wagner was another crowd pleaser, bringing $7500, while James Northfield’s (1887-1973) colour lithograph (lot 558) sold for $6500 – the same price as a 19th century Swift & Crice Quandong seed necklace (lot 735) and an early 20th century French Daum cameo glass vase (lot 144).
One of the more remarkable items in the auction was a circa 1880 Australian coat-of-arms from Queensland’s Charters Towers, worked in wool by William Duncan (lot 132), which brought $5500 – the amount also paid for a circa 1840 early Australian colonial cedar workbox, illustrated in Nineteenth Century Australian Furniture by Fahy, Simpson & Simpson.
Lots 746, 572 and 599 also were notably popular – the first a Robert Hawker Dowling (1827-1886) miniature oil portrait ivory brooch from the 1850s which sold for $4800 – and the last two respectively an Eileen Mayo (1906-1994) colour lithograph entitled Cockatoo & Banksia, and Little Dock, Melbourne an oil on board by William Dunn Knox (1880-1945).
Dowling was born in England and in 1839 brought to Launceston, Tasmania by his parents, Reverend Henry and Elizabeth Dowling.
