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Lot 486
PETER LAYTON (born 1937); a glass globe vase with swirling blue and gold pattern, incised signature, height 13.5cm. (D) CONDITION REPORT: Appears good with no obvious signs of faults, damage or restoration. This lot qualifies for Artist Resale Rights. For further information, please visit http://www.dacs.org.uk
Lot 82
A SKULL AND ANTLERS OF THE GREAT IRISH DEER (MEGALOCERUS GIGANTEUS). 191cm wideAs I emerged from the cluster of trees, cradling my kill, I stopped short. He stood in front of me, elegant and proud, his colossal figure looming high above the grassland. I took a step back, a twig snapped. The deer’s head darted upwards, his immense antlers slicing through the air. His powerful jaw clenched with apprehension, a shimmer of fear flickered in his eyes - and then he was gone.Thirteen thousand years ago, Ireland was gripped by the formidable paws of the Pleistocene epoch, an era which saw Homo Sapiens mixing with creatures the size of which we can only gawk at today. The Great Irish Deer was among these beasts. Standing up to two metres tall at the shoulder, with an antler span that could reach three metres, the Great Irish Deer would have been a sobering sight. Ever since the discovery of their fossils in the 1600s, the Deer has sparked debate and fuelled the research of many an academician. Despite their name, the species was not limited to Ireland but instead was spread out across Europe, Northern Asia and Northern Africa. The Irish attribution was a result of the hundreds of remains found buried in the marl underlying the Irish bogland. The high calcium carbonate content of the marl aided the preservation of bones and antlers, providing the rich supply that now festers in museum cupboards and richly adorns the great banqueting halls of Europe. But why is it that such an impressive animal has come to such an end The strongest theory is that the climate change that occurred with the start of the Holocene led to a decrease in the Deer’s food source. With the annual renewal of its antlers, the Irish Deer required immense mineral amounts to fuel their bodies. With the slow decrease of this, it is thought that their bodies could not adjust to the reduced quantities quick enough and the rate of antler growth to other bodily requirements was simply not sustainable. Whilst the Deer did in fact survive the Ice Age that marked the switch in climates, is it notable that they died out in Ireland much sooner than in other parts of the world, the youngest known remains being found in Siberia and dating to c.6000 BC. This could be explained by the fact that in Ireland, unlike on the Continent, the deer could not move on to better grazing lands once their old food source had been exhausted. Although it is unlikely that humans were the single cause of their final extinction, it is interesting to observe the depiction of Great Irish Deer among the cave paintings discovered in France. These images would suggest that the animals were hunted, their meat being a valuable addition to hungry stomachs seated around a fire, with the possibility of their great antlers being held in an even higher regard.While these animals have been wiped from our world, their extinction itself has proved to be of merit. In the early 1800s, a French scientist by the name of Georges Cuvier used the Great Irish Deer to help him prove that extinction was in a fact a real occurrence. Before this, god-fearing people believed that no creature brought on to Earth would be destroyed and claimed that any animal who had not been seen simply lay hidden in a remote part of the globe, yet unvisited by man. Cuvier successfully argued that the Deer anatomy was too different from any other living species and, like the mammoth and the sabre tooth cat, it had been eliminated. As a result, remains such as these are all that we have to serve as a memory of a world that once was.Helena Carlyle
Lot 236
A good mixed lot to include a quantity of glassware, a model of an elephant, Royal commemorative, an illuminating celestial globe, two telephones, a Folio Society Trafalgar Eye Witness History, two belts with eight additional belt buckles and two walking sticks with souvenir crests, one with a handle depicting a horse's head the other depicting a bird of prey (5)
Lot 683
A group of five folding maps, circa 1880, engraved and printed onto linen backing in 21 sections with card and cloth cover, and marbled end sheet, 'Cruchley's Reduced Ordnance Map of England and Wales', published by G. F. Cruchley, Map Seller & Globe Maker, 81 Fleet Street, comprising sheet number 20, London, with trimmed lower edge, sheet number 37, Stafford and surrounds, sheet number 43, Manchester and surrounds, sheet number 47, Bay of Morecambe, Lancaster and coastlands, and sheet number 52, Lake District and surrounds, each hand coloured and with later additions showing railway lines in red, each 53.5 by 69cm, and 18.5 by 10.5cm, when folded. (5)
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