Categories
-
- Arms, Armour & Militaria
- Bank notes
- Books & Periodicals
- Cameras & Camera Equipment
- Classic Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia
- Coins
- Collectables
- Entertainment Memorabilia
- Kitchenalia
- Maps
- Models, Toys, Dolls & Games
- Musical Instruments & Memorabilia
- Scientific Instruments
- Sporting Memorabilia & Equipment
- Stamps
- Taxidermy & Natural History
- Tools
- Wines & Spirits
- Writing Instruments
News
-
- Art finance
- Auctions
- Brexit
- Buyer's and seller's premiums
- Coronavirus
- Delivery and Shipping
- Education and Training
- Endangered Species
- Events and conferences
- Industry data
- Insurance
- Internet
- Law, crime and regulation
- Museum acquisitions
- Museum deaccessioning
- Obituaries
- Premises and Property
- Private Sales
- Recruitment
- Restoration
- TV shows
-
- 1818 Auctioneers
- Adam Partridge
- Adam's
- Addisons
- AderNordmann
- Aguttes
- Alcala Subastas
- Aldridges
- Amersham Auction Rooms
- Anderson & Garland
- Andrew Smith & Son
- Anthemion
- Antony Cribb
- Artcurial
- Arthur Johnson & Sons
- Aston's
- Auction Team Breker
- Auctionata
- Babuino
- Bainbridges
- Baldwin's
- Bamfords
- Barbara Kirk
- Barbers
- Batemans
- BBR Auctions
- Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood
- Beaussant Lefèvre
- Bellmans
- Bentley’s
- Biddle & Webb
- Bigwood
- Bishop & Miller
- Bleasdales
- Bloomsbury Auctions
- Boldon Auction Galleries
- Bonhams
- Boningtons
- Bosleys
- Bourne End Auction Rooms
- Brettells
- Brighton General Auctions
- Brightwells
- Bristol Auction Rooms
- Browns
- Bruun Rasmussen
- Burstow & Hewett
- Byrnes
- C&T
- Cambi Casa d'Aste
- Canterbury Auction Galleries
- Capes Dunn
- Catherine Southon
- Cato Crane
- Chalkwell
- Charles Miller
- Charles Ross Auctioneers
- Charterhouse
- Cheffins
- Chilcotts
- Chippenham Auction Rooms
- Chiswick Auctions
- Chorley's
- Christie's
- Clark & Simpson
- Clars Auction Gallery
- Clevedon Salerooms
- Comic Book Auctions
- Cotswold Auction Company
- Cottees
- Cowans
- Criterion
- Crow’s Auctions Gallery
- Cuttlestones
- Czerny
- David Duggleby
- David Lay
- Dawsons
- Denhams
- Dix Noonan Webb
- Dominic Winter
- Dorotheum
- Doyle New York
- Dreweatts
- Duke's
- Durrants
- East Bristol Auctions
- Eastbourne Auctions
- Elmwood’s
- Elstob & Elstob
- Ewbank's
- Featonby's
- Fellows
- Fieldings
- Fine Art Auction Group
- Fine Art Bourse
- Flints Auctioneers
- Fonsie Mealy
- Forum Auctions
- Frank Marshall
- Freeman's
- Gardiner Houlgate
- Gary Don
- George Kidner
- Gerrards Auction Rooms
- Gildings
- Golding Young & Mawer
- Gorringes
- Graham Budd
- Grand Auctions
- Great Western Auctions
- Greenslade Taylor Hunt
- Gros & Delettrez
- H&H Classics
- Halls Fine Art
- Hampstead Auctions
- Hannam’s
- Hansons
- Hartleys
- Henry Adams
- Henry Aldridge & Son
- Heritage Auctions
- Hermann Historica
- High Road Auctions
- Hindman
- Holloways
- Holt's
- Hôtel Drouot
- Hotlotz
- Humbert & Ellis
- Hutchinson Scott
- Jacobs & Hunt
- John Nicholson
- John Pye Auctions
- Jones & Jacob
- JS Fine Art
- Jubilee Auction Rooms
- Juliens
- Kerry Taylor
- KettererKunst
- Keys
- Kidson-Trigg
- Kinghams
- Knights Auctions
- Knowle Auction Rooms
- Koller
- Lacy Scott & Knight
- Laidlaw
- Lawrences of Bletchingley
- Lawrences of Crewkerne
- Lempertz
- Leonard Joel
- Lindsay Burns
- Lockdales
- Locke & England
- London Auctions
- Lots Road Auctions
- Louis Taylor
- Lyon & Turnbull
- MacDougall's
- Mallams
- Mander
- Marlows of Stafford
- Martel Maides
- Maxwells
- McTear's
- Mellors & Kirk
- Michael Bowman
- Mitchells
- Moore Allen & Innocent
- Morphets
- Morton & Eden
- Mossgreen
- Mulberry Bank Auctions
- Mullock's
- Nagel
- Nesbits
- Netherhampton Salerooms
- Nicholas Mellors
- Nigel Ward
- Noble Investments
- Olympia Auctions
- Onslows
- Osenat
- Paddle8
- Parker Fine Art Auctions
- Paul Beighton Saleroom
- PBA Galleries
- Peter Francis
- Philip Serrell
- Phillips
- Piasa
- Pierre Bergé & Associes
- Piers Motley
- Plymouth Auction Rooms
- Potteries Auctions
- Rago Auctions
- Railtons
- Reeman Dansie
- Rendells
- Richard Edmonds Auctions
- Richard Winterton
- Ritchies
- Rogers Jones
- Roma Numismatics
- Roseberys
- Ross’s of Belfast
- Rowley's
- Ryedale
- Semley
- Sheffield Auction Gallery
- Sheppard’s
- Silverwoods
- Skinner
- Sotheby's
- Sovereign Rarities
- Special Auction Services
- Spicers
- Spink
- St Jamess Auctions
- Staceys
- Stanley Gibbons Group
- Sterling Vault Auctioneers
- Stride & Son
- Stroud Auctions
- Summers Place Auctions
- Swan Fine Art Auctioneers
- Swann
- Sworders
- Tajan
- Tamlyns
- Tayler and Fletcher
- Taylor's Auctions
- Tennants
- The Pedestal
- Thimbleby & Shorland
- Thomas Del Mar
- Thomas N Miller
- Thomas R Callan
- Thomas Watson
- Thomson Roddick & Medcalf
- Thomson Roddick Scottish Auctions
- Timeline
- Toovey's
- Trevanion
- TW Gaze
- Unique Auctions
- Vectis
- Veritas
- W&H Peacock
- Wallis and Wallis
- Warren & Wignall
- Watches of Knightsbridge
- Wellers
- Wessex Auction Rooms
- Whitton & Laing
- Whytes
- Wilkes & Curtis
- Wilkinson's Auctioneers
- William George & Co
- Wilson55
- Woolley & Wallis
- Wotton Auction Rooms
- Wright Marshall
-
- 1stdibs
- Advertising Standards Authority
- Antiquarian Booksellers Association
- Antique Young Guns
- Antiquities Dealers’ Association
- Art Business Conference
- Art Fund
- Art Loss Register
- Art Recovery International
- Art UK
- Arts Council England
- Assay Office
- Auction Technology Group
- BADA
- BAMF
- CADA
- CINOA
- Company of Arts Scholars
- DACS
- DEFRA
- DMG
- EBay
- Hiscox
- LAPADA
- Lot-tissimo
- National Trust
- NAVA
- Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association
- RICS
- Society of London Art Dealers
- SOFAA
- the saleroom
- Triple-A Auctioneers
-
- Affordable Art Fair
- Antiques Centres
- Antiques Dealers Fair Limited
- Antiques for Everyone Fair
- Ardingly Fair
- Art Antiques London
- Arthur Swallow Fairs
- Bath Decorative Antiques Fair
- Battersea Decorative Fair
- Bermondsey Market
- Book Fairs
- BRAFA
- British Art Fair
- Brussels Fairs
- CADA Fair
- Car Boot Fairs
- Clarion Events
- Continuity Fairs
- Cooper Events
- Fine Art Asia
- Fine Arts Paris
- Florida Fairs
- French Fairs
- Frieze
- Frieze Masters
- Galloway Antiques Fairs
- Harrogate Fairs
- Hatton Garden
- Haughton Fairs
- Hong Kong Fairs
- IACF
- Jaguar Fairs
- LAPADA Fair
- Lincolnshire Antiques and Home Show
- Masterpiece
- Miami Fairs
- Midcentury Modern
- Modern British Art Fair
- NEC Birmingham
- New York Fairs
- Newark Fair
- Newbury Antiques and Collectors Fair
- Olympia Fair
- PAD London
- Palm Beach Fairs
- Paris Biennale
- Paris Fairs
- Paris Parcours
- Paris Tableau
- Penman Fairs
- Philadelphia Fairs
- Regional Fairs
- Salon du Dessin
- Sandown Park Racecourse Fair
- Showground Fairs
- Swinderby Fair
- TEFAF
- The Open Art Fair
- Winter Antiques Show
- Works on Paper Fair
-
- Alfred Taubman
- Bendor Grosvenor
- Bill Ruprecht
- Charles Hanson
- Charlie Ross
- Cornelius Gurlitt
- David Lester
- Ed Dolman
- Eric Knowles
- François Pinault
- Ingrid Nilson
- Lennox Cato
- Lord Ashcroft
- Marco Forgione
- Mark Law
- Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani
- Simon de Pury
- Sue Ede
- Tad Smith
- Tim Goodman
- Victoria Borwick
-
- Abbott and Holder
- Agnews
- Alastair Dickenson
- Blairman
- Carter Marsh
- Colnaghi
- Daniel Katz
- Ian Towning
- Johnny Van Haeften
- London Silver Vaults
- Mallett
- Mark Weiss
- Partridge Fine Art
- Petworth Antiques Dealers
- Philip Mould
- Pimlico Road Dealers
- Richard Green
- Robert Young
- Roger Keverne
- Rupert Maas
- SJ Phillips
- Wartski
-
- A Lawyer Writes
- Around the Auction Houses
- Art Market
- Auction Reports
- Bid Barometer
- Books and Works on Paper
- Dealers' Diary
- Fairs & Markets (print edition)
- Features
- Front Page and News
- International (print edition)
- Interviews and Newsmakers
- Letters to the Editor
- News in Brief
- Obituaries (print edition)
- Opinion
- Pick of the Week
- Precious Metals Prices
- Previews
- Soapbox
- Special Reports
- Then & Now
Folio
A folio is a term used for a book made of individual sheets of paper, usually folded to produce two leaves or four pages. Folios were a common format for early printed books in the late 15th and early 16th century and many of the most valuable books on the market today were originally published as folios.
These include the early editions of the compendiums of Shakespeare’s plays known as the First Folio, Second Folio, Third Folio etc, as well as John James Audubon’s The Birds of America first published in 1827 and sometimes referred to as a ‘double elephant folio’ due to its size.
Victorian brass rubbings emerge at Norwich fleamarket
11 April 2014An item with an interesting local connection which is for sale at this Saturday’s Norwich Fleamarket is a rare Victorian large folio of European brass rubbings collected by a Norwich cleric.
Swanns go native for $1.2m sale
18 October 2012Edward S. Curtis’ monumental photographic study of ‘The North American Indian’ was one of the most expensive and ambitious undertakings in the history of book production, comprising 20 illustrated text volumes and 20 folios of larger photographic plates.
Views from a unique Victorian honeymoon
10 April 2012IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.
Audubon flies to new record for printed book at £6.5m
13 December 2010AT Sotheby's sale in New Bond Street on December 7, a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America set a new auction record for any printed book when it sold to the London art dealer Michael Tollemache for £6.5m (plus premium).
Singapore and the China Seas, saved from the bonfire
22 March 2010WILTSHIRE auctioneers Netherhampton Salerooms were celebrating a new house record on March 3 after a disbound album of Far Eastern topographical drawings sold for £43,000.
Is £2.5m a bargain for the Bard?
18 July 2006IT set a British auction record for a Shakespeare First Folio and made the highest price ever seen for a printed book at Sotheby’s London (20/12% buyer’s premium) – but hushed voices at the back of the saleroom were suggesting that the £2.5m hammer price represented pretty good value for a near-perfect copy of the most important book in English literature.
£530,000 day suggests more Anglo-French sales are on the books
14 October 2004DAY two of the sale of the Mira Jacob Collection, held by Bailly-Pommery-Voutier & Sotheby’s (23.92 - 14.35% buyer's premium), was devoted to prints and illustrated books and yielded €780,000 (£530,000) with all but seven of the 166 lots selling.
£160,000 in the Will
13 October 2004THE sale of a Shakespeare First Folio is a rare event, but the sale of a copy that emerged out of nowhere is something that comes around only once in a generation.
Shakespeare but no will
07 October 2004“EVERY auction house’s dream” is how Rupert Powell, managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, described the discovery of a Shakespeare First Folio that will provide a fitting centrepiece for the company’s 500th sale on Thursday October 7.
A natural history selection
29 September 2004IN Antiques Trade Gazette No.1655, I illustrated a first octavo edition of Audubon’s Birds of America, 1840-44, that sold for $48,000 (£25,920) in a May sale held by Northeast Auctions of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In their August 21-22 sale they had another, half morocco bound and rather better looking set – one originally sold by Clarendon Harris, a book dealer of Worcester, Mass – which made $64,000 (£35,200).
Philip Miller’s Figures total $14,000
29 September 2004SOMETHING I overlooked when compiling my principal natural history round-ups of the summer was a copy of ‘Philip Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary’ – or at least that was how it was described in a 10 word entry in the catalogue of a May 21-23 sale held by Northeast Auctions of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Faerie Queen folio
29 September 2004HANDSOMELY bound in dark crimson morocco gilt in the 19th century, a 1609, first folio edition of Spenser’s Faerie Queene, the titles to the two parts with large and elaborate woodcut devices (both with small amounts of early colouring) and containing numerous woodcut head- and tailpieces incorporating various royal devices and symbols, made £1740 (Powell) in a Dominic Winter sale of July 21.
Extra-etched and bound
10 June 2004THIS punting scene by Whistler is one of some 3000 additional original and reproduction etchings and engravings, mostly full-page and many mounted and titled in ink as well as being mounted, where possible opposite the relevant text, that were to be found in an extra-illustrated 1880, third edition of Philip G. Hamerton’s Etchings & Etchers seen at Bonhams on May 6.
The indomitable Herr Kerner and his 144 bunches of grapes…
05 July 2002It is believed that only two copies of Johann Simon Kerner’s Le Raisin, ses espèces et variétées… were completed, but then this German botanist did make it hard work for himself in choosing to illustrate it with original watercolours.
Arne’s co-opera(tive) ‘Love in a Village’
18 February 2002BOOKS played a fairly minor part in the first Newbury antiques sale of the year at Dreweatt Neate on 30 January – one that raised in excess of £1.5m, a record for the Berkshire saleroom – but they did get the proceedings under way, and the very first lot in the catalogue, a misbound and now disbound and browned copy of Love in a Village, a comic opera as performed at The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden... showed the way in selling for a double estimate £200.
Henri II makes his bookmark
26 February 2001FRANCE: A SET of 56 folio engraved plates by the Renaissance draughtsman and engraver Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (Paris c.1560), showing various Renaissance furniture designs ranging from buffets and tables to wardrobes and beds, below right, tripled hopes on Fr70,000 (£6800) in Chartres on January 21.