SALE-ROOM MARVELS.

Northern Advocate, 8 September 1913, Page 2

SALE-ROOM MARVELS.

A portrait by Franz Hals of a gentleman in black dress, white collar, and tassels and black hat was sold for £9000 at Sotheby's recently, the bidding starting at £1000.

In 1884 the same picture only realised the trifling sum of £5 ss, with another Flemish picture thrown in!

Sensational rises in price were also witnessed at a sale at Christie's. A portiait by Sir W. Beecher, for which the artist receiver! a fee of SO guineas in ISO 9. changed hands for the sum of 1020 guineas, and a pair of small portraits by P. Moreelse, sold in' 1861 for 49 guineas, realised the large sum of 2200 guineas.

At the sale of the property of the late Sir John Murray Scott the immense sum of £57,510 was realised. There were sixty-four lots in all, the total working out at an average of nearly £1000 per lot.

For a set of Tour panels of Beauvais tapestry the bidding started at 2000 guineas, the tapestries being knocked down at 10,000 guineas. The second highest price of the day was realised for a. bronze figure, "Cupid Menacant," by Falconet. The biding for this started at only ten guineas, but rose rapidly to 7000 guineas, at which sum it was knocked down to a Parisian art expert.