We found 77168 price guide item(s) matching your search
There are 77168 lots that match your search criteria. Subscribe now to get instant access to the full price guide service.
Click here to subscribe- List
- Grid
-
77168 item(s)/page
Lot 741
THE WORMHOUDT MASSACRE, DUNKIRK 1940 - AN HISTORIC & IMPORTANT PAPER ARCHIVE comprising the personal research papers, notes and correspondences of the late Reverend Leslie Aitken M.B.E., author of 'On the Road to Dunkirk. Wilhelm Mohnke and the Wormhout Massacre - The Real Evidence', including original papers from the investigation team, dated 1947, unpublished hand-written letters from serving soldiers and other witness accounts, maps, diagrams and photographs; also letters to and from Jeff Rooker M.P. regarding the proposed extradition from Germany of S.S. Gruppenfuhrer Wilhelm Mohnke, thought to be responsible for ordering the massacre, on charges of war crimes. Note: Herded inside the stinking, airless cowshed, with barely room to stand upright, the 100 British soldiers, many wounded after five hours of fierce fighting, called out to their captors for water. Captain Lynn-Allen, the most senior officer, banged on the bolted door, shouting: ''For the love of God, there is no more room in here.'' Outside, in the sweltering May sunshine, a German officer laughed and told him: ''Where you are going there will be a lot of room.''At that moment Captain Lynn-Allen can have had little doubt as to what their fate would be. What remained of his men, the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment - along with remnants of The Cheshire Regiment and The Royal Artillery - had been crammed into the tiny barn by an elite squad of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler regiment, whose orders, Lynn-Allen must have realised, would have been to take no prisoners. The Geneva Convention had little meaning here.Lynn-Allen asked that his men be allowed a final smoke and, with a calm dignity, he doled out Players cigarettes to his shocked soldiers: men who had fought to the last clip of ammunition before capture. He must have known his mission, though crucial, was nigh-on impossible. When he had arrived at Wormhoudt, a small village on the road from Cassel to Dunkirk, two days before on May 26, 1940, his orders had been clear: ''Tell your men, with our backs to the wall, the division stands and fights.'' It was imperative they hold Wormhoudt, pancake-flat with a little surrounding cover so that thousands of British Expeditionary Force soldiers who were encircled by advancing German units could be evacuated from Dunkirk. The longer he kept the crack SS squads at bay, the more allied soldiers of the Royal Navy and flotilla of little ships could save.Crushed behind Lynn-Allen by the barn door, Private Bert Evans, just 19, shared his cigarette with his friend Charlie. As they drew deep, Charlie turned to him and said: ''This is it, Bert. We're finished.'' They were to be his last words. A few seconds later two grenades were lobbed into the barn and it was raked by machine-gun fire.When it stopped, only a handful of survivors, many of them hideously wounded, lay amid the bodies of their dead comrades. The barn door was yanked open and, one by one, those still alive were pulled out and shot in the back of the head. Inside, his right arm all but blown off by the blast, Bert Evans watched in horror as the bodies piled up by the door. Lynn-Allen, miraculously unscathed, saw their chance. He grabbed Pte Evans and made a run for it, dragging him behind.Lynn-Allen could have bolted alone. He could have run, literally, for his life. Instead, he stayed with his wounded and barely conscious private, refusing to leave him. It cost Lynn-Allen his life. When the pair staggered into a pond, an SS officer who had pursued them fired at his forehead from point-blank range and shot Pte Evans in the neck. As both men disappeared under the water, they were left for dead.''And that's how he died. That's how my captain died. Saving my life,'' Bert says, nodding his head slowly. ''Charlie knew. When he said we were finished, I knew too? But my captain died saving my life. He was a fine man and a fine soldier. There isn't a day that I don't thank God for it. And thank God too that we did our duty. Those men who died in that shed. They gave their lives so that the men could be taken off the beaches of Dunkirk. They did it because it was their duty. And they did it for their comrades. You fight for your King. You fight for your country. But most of all you fight for your brothers. The men who stand shoulder to shoulder.''Today Bert, the sole survivor of the Wormhoudt massacre, is 89. His cornflower-blue eyes are clouded with cataracts and he isn't as steady on his feet as he once was. But each year, on May 28, as the nation salutes the evacuation of Dunkirk during which 340,000 British and allied soldiers were plucked from the beaches, Bert's thoughts are with the brothers in arms he lost that day.In recent years the French authorities and British veteran associations have restored the barn at Wormhoudt, and today it is a shrine to the men murdered inside. It stands in the middle of open fields: a small, thatched building, its flimsy walls festooned with wreaths, crosses and faded photographs, testimony that it was the site of one of the most horrific massacres of the War.£200-300 (Plus 23.4% Buyer’s Premium inc. VAT)
Lot 248
AUDREY GREEN "Sheep in snow", pastel, together with C CORAM "Still life depicting walnuts and nut crackers with orange in the foreground, wine glass and a twin handled red cup with foliate and bird design", signed and dated 1982 oil on canvas, MUGHAL SCHOOL "Women bathing by a well, a prince on horse back in background" gouache on fabric together with another of figures and elephant and numerous other assorted prints and pictures
Lot 101
GEORGE LESLIE HUNTER (SCOTTISH 1877-1931) A STILL LIFE OF TULIPS AND FRUIT Signed, oil on canvas 46cm x 56cm (18in x 22in) Provenance: William McInnes Esq A gift from the above and thence by descent Exhibited:Glasgow Art Gallery & Museum, George Leslie Hunter, no.241 Literature:Bill Smith & Jill Marriner, Hunter Revisited, 2012, pp.162,162, Ill.141 'At first glance Tulips appears to have a far freer feel but its simplicity belies the extent of manipulation employed by Hunter. The paint is thin and flat but he brings out the vitality of the flowers and beauty of the objects through his astute use of colour.' Note: Hunter did not live to an old age; passing away suddenly at the age of fifty-four. Fortunately for subsequent appreciators of his work, the friends and staunch supporters he made during his lifetime included influential members of the Scottish art establishment; most notably Professor T. J. Honeyman, a former doctor and collector turned dealer and curator. Clearly invested in their friend's career and welfare, we are left with an unusually comprehensive record of his life and work, as told through the eyes of those who knew him, and his work, well. We are therefore able to understand exactly how, and under what circumstances, many of his artworks were executed, and enabled genuine insight into what Hunter was striving to achieve artistically during each period. The work offered here for sale is an excellent example of this unique level of understanding we are offered into the artist's motivations. Tulips was painted in 1930, and is representative of a new chapter in his painting style at this time. We know that Hunter had been forced to return to Glasgow in 1929 having suffered a steep downturn in health while in the South of France. A recurring pattern in his life was to severely neglect his well-being whilst in the throes of artistic inspiration, or whilst suffering mentally in the aftermath of a disappointing exhibition or review. He had recovered well whilst under the care of his sister, though he was finding the reaction from the Glasgow Art Club towards his latest artistic developments depressing. Hunter was moving steadily towards a loosening of technique which involved a paring back of form and an increasingly vivid palette. For the last decade, he had progressed through a period of immensely complex formal arrangements and technical, patterned brushwork. This energetic, freer form was less a regression in skill, as some critics at the time perceived, but rather evidence of the fruition of a sophisticated fluidity in his handling; an organic development in style and virtuosity. There is an obvious pleasure and an absence of struggle or labour in his works of this period. To his biographers, including Honeyman himself, this work was the best of his career; not least because Hunter quickly began to develop an unshakeable belief in the merits of this latest direction, a fact tangible to the viewer. What is also obvious in works like Tulips, is that they belong to the same cheerfully progressive world as Matisse. Indeed, we know that at this time Hunter was directly reinvigorated by the stunning example of Matisse's work, La Nappe Rose, belonging to his friend, the Glasgow collector McInnes. Hunter's connection with this painting was a significant and deep one. He and McInnes had travelled to Paris together in 1925, where they had viewed a new exhibition of the artist's work. Encouraged by an infectiously enthusiastic Hunter, McInnes purchased the work in question, which is now held in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow. As well as the clear inspiration the picture offered in terms of vitality of tone and simplicity of structure, it likely resonated with happy memories for Hunter, whose own artwork was receiving much critical praise in the mid-1920s. It must be remembered that Hunter enjoyed a window of time where he was recognised internationally as a modernist of developing importance. In a letter to a friend in 1924, for example, Hunter references a particularly interesting commendation from the prominent Parisian art dealer, Etienne Bignou: 'Bignou told McNeill (a collector) he thought Matisse the only man in Paris the equal of Peploe and myself.' That Tulips entered McInnes' art collection is not, therefore, a great surprise. It is gratifying that key dealers and collectors continued to support Hunter through these latter important developments in his career, though of course tragic that these strides were to be cut short just a year later when the artist sadly and suddenly passed away.
![[§] DAME ELIZABETH VIOLET BLACKADDER C.B.E., R.A., R.S.A., R.S.W., R.G.I., D.LITT. (SCOTTISH B.1931) STILL LIFE ON A BLACK T](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/7a3b07ba-925b-47a0-9648-a8e400b4f7ed/4c053cc4-29ee-4b83-a12f-96aa0a232fb5/468x382.jpg)
![[§] DAVID ABERCROMBIE DONALDSON R.S.A., R.P., L.L. (SCOTTISH 1916-1996) STILL LIFE WITH PRIMULA Signed, oil on canvas 75.](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/7a3b07ba-925b-47a0-9648-a8e400b4f7ed/35c53724-ec44-4b9b-c616-d7650b68f543/468x382.jpg)
![[§] MARY ARMOUR R.S.A., R.S.W. (SCOTTISH 1902-2000) RED STILL-LIFE WITH PLUMS Signed and dated 1979, oil on canvas 54cm x](https://cdn.globalauctionplatform.com/7a3b07ba-925b-47a0-9648-a8e400b4f7ed/257fce75-a3bc-4da1-8a08-60c51144e760/468x382.jpg)
Lot 154
WAGNER RICHARD: (1813-1883) German Composer. An unusual printed 8vo page annotated by Wagner, being the introduction to a publication relating to the composer's opera Tannhauser, the German text to the recto and verso of the page, removed from a First Edition work published by Schulthess of Zurich, August 1852. At the head of the first page Wagner has added the words 'Programm der Ouvertüre zu Tannhäuser' in his hand. A thin strip of sellotape staining to the left edge, not affecting the printed text or Wagner's holograph annotation. Some very light, minor creasing, about VG £1000 - 1500Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (1845) is an opera in three acts with music and text by Wagner, inspired by two German legends. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, and redemption through love, a theme running through much of Wagner's mature work. Wagner made a number of revisions of the opera throughout his life and was still unsatisfied with its format when he died. The most significant revision was made for the opera's premiere in Paris in 1861. The opera remains a staple of major opera house repertoire in the 21st century.
Lot 373
FREUD SIGMUND: (1856-1939) Austrian Neurologist & Founder of Psychoanalysis. Freud formulated the Oedipus complex and developed his theory on the Analysis of Dreams. He lived and worked in Vienna until 1938 when he escaped the Nazis and went to the United Kingdom where he lived in exile the last year of his life. An excellent and interesting A.L.S., `Sigm. Freud´, two pages, 4to, Vienna, 18th May 1936, on his personal printed stationery with printed heading “Prof. Dr. Freud - Wien, IX., Berggasse 19.”, to Stefan Zweig, in German. Freud refers to himself shortly after his eighty´s birthday expressing his thoughts, his full conviction that his theories are right, but also stating that he does not think they will have any future support and influence. Freud also refers to his discours, written with Thomas Mann, and its importance at this stage of his life. Further mentioning his future trip to the “non-existence”, and concluding with a sharp comment, saying that in the gallery of remarkable people he has in his mind he is certainly not the most interesting one, but at least `I am the only one still alive´. Freud states in part `..Vor der Beantwortung habe ich Ihren Brief wieder gelesen. Ich konnte vergessen, daß ein Meister des Stils ihn geschrieben hat. Er klingt so einfach wahrhaft. Er hätte mich beinahe von meiner Bedeutung überzeugt. Nicht, daß ich am Wahrheitsgehalt meiner Lehren selbst zweifelte, aber es fällt mir schwer zu glauben, daß sie einen nachweisbaren Einfluß auf die Entwicklung der näheren Zukunft aüssern könnten. So komme ich mir viel weniger wichtig vor, als Sie mich darstellen..´ Accompanied by the original envelope post-stamped, addressed in Freud´s hand. VG £8000-12000 Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) Austrian Writer.
Lot 411
Three coloured prints - Still life, each in a decorative gilt gesso frame housed in a simulated rosewood cabinet frame, overall sizes 20cm x 17.5cm and 25.5cm x 21.75cm Condition: We are unable to inspect the frames fully as they are each in a cabinet frame, however they appear in good order but there are some fractures, smallest frame has bottom decorative section missing, all are missing easels - **General condition consistent with age
Loading...-
77168 item(s)/page