SOTHEBY’S PARIS One of Napoleon Bonaparte’s bicorne hats sold for £1m (€1.2m) at the French saleroom.

20 to 30 of Napoleon’s bicorne hats are thought to exist

Believed to have been worn by the first French emperor on July 7, 1807, during a meeting with Russia’s Alexander I to sign the Treaty of Tilsit, it far exceeded its pre-

sale estimate of £425,000-£600,000.

Napoleon owned an estimated 120

bicorne hats during his

A 10-pointed, star-shaped medallion encasing a lock of Napole-

on’s hair sold for

£16,000

emperorship, according to Sotheby’s, making it something of a trademark. Each was made of silk and felt by the same hatter.

CATHERINE SOUTHON, CHISLEHURST A Bond Street sign from Westminster City Council topped the Kent auctioneer’s recent sale, selling for £3,472 against an estimate of £700£900. Elsewhere, an Oxford Circus sign fetched £2,976 against an upper estimate of £1,000, while one for Holborn beat its pre-sale

The Bond Street sign was the sale’s top seller when it sold for

£3,472

estimate

A rare 1910 enamel London Underground map sold for £2,728 to a railwayana buff of £700-£900 by attracting 22 bids before selling to a private buyer for £2,480.

A seated nude, 71 x 57cm oil on canvas estimated at £150-£250, sold for £2,375

EWBANK’S, WOKING A half-length oil on canvas of a seated nude sold for £2,375 against an estimate of £150-£250 in Surrey.

The work was one of 98 unseen works by the Plymouth-born artist Lionel Ellis (1903-1988) who studied at Plymouth School of Art and then Royal College of Art from 1922–1924, later exhibiting at the Royal Academy. Senior Partner, Chris Ewbank, said: “Ellis’s work is found in a number of major public institutions. The multipleestimate prices of the top ten works that sold show how popular his art was across the spectrum of subject matter.”

HALLS, BATTLEFIELD A colourful watercolour by the artist Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe OBE RA (1901-1979) tripled its low estimate to make £6,000 at the Shropshire auctioneer’s recent sale.

The signed C.F. Tunnicliffe watercolour was the sale’s top seller

Lochinver Gulls had been exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1973, and was loaned by the vendor to Oriel Ynys Môn gallery in Anglesey for the Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe exhibition in 2019-2020.

There was a strong connection between C.F. Tunnicliffe and fellow Anglesey artist, Sir Kyffin Williams, who persuaded the highly modest Tunnicliffe to hold a later exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy in 1974, which was a great success.

Oriel Ynys Môn was built in Anglesey in 1991 to house a collection of Tunnicliffe’s works acquired by Anglesey Borough Council from Christie’s, 10 years earlier.

CHEFFINS, CAMBRIDGE Consigned from “an important country house in Suffolk”, a large three-seater Howard & Sons sofa sold for £16,500, double its low estimate at the East Anglian auction house’s recent sale.

As reported in this magazine, furniture by the renowned maker continues to sell for prices way beyond their estimates.

The sale also included 150 lots from a major collection consigned from the Tudorstyle Lanwades Hall near Newmarket.

The sofa by the renowned London maker Howard & Sons sold for £16,500

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