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Lot 14
Franklin Mint precision model - 1:24 scale 1921 Rolls Royce "Silver Ghost" - with a copper coloured body, with original certificate of authenticity, housed in polystyrene packaging, together with The Rolls-Royce Corniche IV Anniversary Limited edition by the same maker, complete with all original packaging and paperwork. (2)
Lot 260
Royal Albert Beatrix Potter large scale Peter Rabbit (boxed) Mrs Rabbit and a musical figure, with two seconds quality Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tiggy Winkle. P&P Group 3 (£25+VAT for the first lot and £5+VAT for subsequent lots)Condition Report: Very good condition, no damage at the time of lotting.
Lot 61
Manieristic Umbrian sundial, stone plate with scale, Roman numbers and two pietra dura star intarsias; the sides decorated with sculpted fluted band, canted and rounded corners, on top a round sculpted gallo Siena grotesque mask with open mouth and iron turned sun finger; 18th/19th Century. Dimensions: 66x76cm
Lot 28
A rare Safavid oil painting of an African soldier Persia, Isfahan, circa 1680-90oil on canvas, affixed with a fragmentary old label on the stretcher reading Portrait of an Indian Officer 122 x 79.5 cm. Footnotes:ProvenancePrivate English aristocratic collection, London. Acquired by the vendor's mother in Jaipur during a visit to the court of Maharajah Man Singh II in the mid 1960s.Bonhams have the privilege of presenting an enigmatic and unique painting depicting a flamboyant African soldier in Safavid Persia. Immensely rare, the present work is quite likely to be one of the first ever depictions of an African subject in Persian oil painting, and one of the earliest artistic records of the black African community whose descendants continue to reside in the Gulf region.Isfahan was referred to as 'half the world' (nisf-i jahan) by the 16th Century. Shah 'Abbas (reg. 1588-1629) had moved his capital from Qazwin, Safavid political power had grown, there was a flowering of culture in Persia, and Isfahan, in particular, became a nexus of trade and cultural exchange. Along with the Ottoman Sultan and the 'Grand Mughal', Safavid Persia and Shah 'Abbas ('The Sophy' or 'The Great Sophy', an expression probably deriving from a mishearing of 'Safavi'), were touchstones of grandeur and exoticism in Western consciousness at the time.One thinks of the striking image, spread across a double page in a folio volume, of the Maidan-i Naqsh-i Jahan in Isfahan, in Voyages de Corneille le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Orientales (Amsterdam 1718) – where the broken lines of the tents of the bazaar, where all sorts of business was being transacted amongst several nationalities, contrast with the more austere lines of the Safavid architecture surrounding them. As Cornelius de Bruyn's accompanying account put it: 'The greater part of this plaza is full of tents, where all kinds of things are sold [...] One continually sees a prodigious crowd of people and among other things a large number of people of quality who come and go to the court' (see S. R. Canby, Shah 'Abbas: the Remaking of Iran (London 2009), pp. 260-261, no. 127, illustrated). And one also thinks of the group of twenty-one paintings discussed by Eleanor Sims in her essay below – the depictions of people of various ethnicities, genders, in different forms of dress, alongside types of decorative objects - and so to our painting of a young African man.While the painting is – as Eleanor Sims argues below – a type, and one playing on variations in Safavid fashion, it must surely refer ultimately to a real-life soldier, a musketeer or tofangchi, a division of the Persian army primarily composed of foreign mercenaries. A figure (albeit one with white skin) which appears in the Kaempfner Album (produced in Isfahan in 1684-85) in the British Museum is highly reminiscent of our subject, in pose, weaponry and dress: the hat with its plume, the two straps which pass over his shoulders (to a backpack?), the accoutrements around his waist, the red-orange breeches, and the white banded gaiters. The British Museum catalogue describes him as a royal bodyguard. Leaving aside western Europeans, most foreigners in Safavid Persia, whether free or slaves, were closer to home – they were from the Caucasus, Georgia, Circassia, or notably, Armenian, in the flourishing town of New Julfa. But an African must have been in a minority, by geographical accident (and less common than in Ottoman Turkey, where black Africans, often eunuchs, were more commonly in positions of power at court). Our figure demonstrates his confidence in his rank and profession, his dress and (to some degree, at least) his wealth, create a well-to-do image, almost dandyish.Eleanor Sims traces his relation in this respect to the 'Tehran Suite' of paintings. In addition, both figures in an Afsharid oil painting, done around fifty years later, wear long coats with the same horizontal frogging on the chest (albeit with much more embroidered decoration on the coats), and the male figure wears the same vertically-striped undershirt - and these figures are of a notably higher class (the catalogue description speculated whether the male might be a son of Nadir Shah). See Sotheby's, Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 22nd & 23rd May 1986, lot 175 (dated to circa 1735-45).Whether he was a slave, who had come to Persia via the Arab trade from East Africa and the Indian Ocean into the Gulf (whose descendants to this day form an Afro-Iranian community in the south of the country); whether he had been freed as a condition of service in the Persian army; whether he was a free man who had ended up in the melting-pot of 17th Century Isfahan; or whether he is strictly a 'type', perhaps made African to cater to an existing European interest in blackamoors, and other signifiers of 'the exotic' (especially if he had a female companion painting, as Sims suggests) - we will doubtless never know. What does seem to be clear is that this painting is a rare, perhaps unique portrayal of an African in the Safavid army, and of an African in Persia.An African Youthby Eleanor SimsCould a picture offer any greater degree of 'exotic' than does this oil-painted figure of a young African wearing imaginatively interpreted 17th-century Safavid Persian clothing?He is one among a presently recorded number (21) of large rectangular pictures, painted in oil on canvas. All are single figures; all are dressed in fine 17th-Century Safavid clothing; all comfortably fill their picture-space. Their dress, especially that of the women, usually also distinguishes their ethnicity and religious affiliation: Muslim Persian, Armenian and Georgian Christian. Several men among the 21 may instead be Europeans in Safavid garb, but they are the exceptions within the genre. And with a different exception, none is either signed or dated; all but three are anonymous.Such paintings were almost surely commissioned by Europeans in the cosmopolitan melange of peoples visiting Safavid Isfahan in that century (Eleanor Sims, 'Five Seventeenth-Century Persian Oil Paintings', Persian and Mughal Art, ed. Michael Goedhuis, London 1976, pp. 223-32). Struck by the 'exotic' inhabitants they saw, many wanted images to take with them, when they returned to their own countries. English travellers seem to have been especially desirous of owning these 'exotic' personages, especially when they could be executed on a scale not unlike the oil-painted portraits already hanging on their walls. Indeed, many can be connected with houses or families: in Wiltshire (see Mary Arnold-Forster, Basset Down: An Old Country House, London 1949, p. 147; Eleanor Sims, 'The 'Exotic' Image: Oil-Painting in Iran in the Later 17th and the Early 18th Centuries', in The Phenomenon of 'Foreign' in Oriental Art, ed. Annette Hagedorn, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 135–40 passim; eadem, 'Six Seventeenth-century Oil Paintings from Safavid Persia', in God is Beautiful and Loves Beauty: The Object in Islamic Art and Culture, New Haven & London 2013, pp. 343, 346-47), and in Northamptonshire, (eadem, 'Five Seventeenth-Century Persian Oil Paintings', pp. 241-48). Three are known to have been in English royal possession since the middle of the 17th century (1651; noted on the Royal Collection Trust Website; two published in Epic Iran: 5000 Years of Culture, J. Curtis, I. Sarikhani-Sandmann, and T. Stanley, London 2020, cat. 183-84). But that this youth is black makes him an especially exotic figure, even for 17th-century Isfahan.He stands in an open landscape whose horizon is at mid-figure height. The fore- and middle-ground show rows of grassy... This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: RR This lot is subject to import restrictions when shipped to the United States.For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
Lot 76
An Italian sculpted white marble portrait bust of a young boy, possibly the infant Christ, in Renaissance style, portrayed with serene visage and drapery surrounding the truncated torso, 29cm highIn around 1410, the Italian prelate and later Cardinal Giovanni Dominici recommended that parents display images of the Christ Child and the young John in their homes, to serve as moral examples for their children. Sculptors in and around Florence such as Desiderio da Settignano and his contemporaries Antonio Rossellino and Mino da Fiesole are known to have sculpted busts of young boys on a similar scale, which are often considered to represent these Saints as children.
Lot 248
New Hall porcelain,pattern no. 173, the pink scale borders with floral sprays over an undulating line and small coloured sprays,comprising:a milk jug,a cream jug,a slop bowl, and3 tea bowls and saucers,jugs 8 and 11cm high,slop bowl 15cm diameter (9)Condition report: Minor wear.Firing fritting and discolouration, especially to cream jug handles.
Lot 306
A parlour guitar,19th century, possibly Spanish, having a rosewood fretboard with a moustache tailpiece, and mother-of-pearl and inlaid decoration,90cm long overallscale length 61cm, in a wooden carry caseCondition report: old splits to the front, faded, scratched and wear, some damage to inlay, lowest fret missing ebonised back of fret board very worn consummate with playing, further small splits, no labels or makers marks. Neck and body attachment steady. Low e string approx 0.6cm from 12th fret.
Lot 68
A carved wooden Black Forest postal scale,late 19th century, with carved bear support,19cm high,together with two inkwells in the form of bears (3)Condition report: Light wear and abrasions, chips and scratches, scales appear operational. Crude repair to both feet of bear with scales - this piece is likely late 19th/ early 20th century.
Lot 892
A good scale model bone model cannon,the barrel carved with the 'VOC' monogram of the Dutch East India Company, the whole crisply carved and well-worked with an adjustable and detachable barrel and revolving wheels,37cm long14.5cm highThe Dutch East India Company, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie ('VOC'), was founded in 1602 to trade with Mughal India. The company was nationalised by the Dutch Government in 1799 with VOC territories becoming Dutch Government colonies.Condition report: A patch to the underside of the cannon barrel. One clip securing barrel broken and glued. One bracket/handle to rear 'stock' damaged and missing. Knocks, splits, losses and areas of repair throughout.
Lot 2201
Selection of ten unboxed diecast cars comprising 1:18 scale x6 including Porsche, Avdi, Mercedes etc, and 1:24 scale x4; Burago, Jaguar, Mercedes, Bugatti. All ex-display. May have small parts missing, dusty etc. Also includes Northumbria bus related calendars; 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994. P&P Group 3 (£25+VAT for the first lot and £5+VAT for subsequent lots)
Lot 644
A QUANTITY OF MODEL RAILWAY AND WAR GAMING SCENIC ACCESSORIES, to include a quantity of PNP Railways plastic railway sleepers suitable for between 3.5'' and 5'' gauge track, quantity of chairs, scenic accessories, Bachman Scenicraft G scale figures (sealed in original packaging), wargaming dioramas, trees and hedges etc, small quantity of Brimm and other diecast vehicles (s.d), Games Workshop books/guides, locomotive coat rack etc (two boxes)
Lot 878
Six Corgi Classics and Corgi Limited Edition 1:50 scale diecasts, Building Britain Sets, Blue Circle Cement 13904, London Brick Company 24502 x2, Connoisseur Collection, Macbraynes 22502, British Road Services, Steel Peech & Tozer 23901 and Guy Warrior 4 Wheel Platform Lorry 28901, all have mirrors unattached and present, certificates present, all appear unused, all boxed
Lot 879
Six Corgi Classics and Corgi Limited Edition 1:50 scale diecasts, 40th Anniversary Sets, F.B. Atkins 27601, Wall's 21401, McKelvie & Co Ltd 24201 and Tetley's 19702, Heavy Haulage Siddle Cook 17501 & Hallett Silbermann 16901, all have mirrors unattached and present, certificates present, all appear unused, all boxed
Lot 880
Three Corgi Classics Limited Edition 1:50 scale diecasts, Tennant Set 97366, British Road Services Portsmouth Set 97329 and Webster's Set 97318, all with unpainted figures present along with a Corgi Limited Edition 1:50 scale diecast, Regent Foden Tanker Set 97970, all have certificates present, all appear unused, all boxed
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186097 item(s)/page