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Home, Garden & Natural History (Live) featuring the Ralfe Whistler Dodo collection

Closed for Absentee bids.

Auction date Tuesday 24 September 2024 13:00 - 16:00 BST

Ralfe Whistler (1930-2023) was a British naturalist whose father Hugh (1889-1943) was an ornithologist and collected 70,000 specimens of Indian birds. Ralfe was brought up surrounded by an extensive collection of stuffed birds, which were later donated to the Natural History Museum. Hugh had been given the first bones of a Dodo by the founder of the Hastings Museum, Thomas Parkin, to encourage his interest in natural history. The Dodo bones were passed on to Ralfe after his father's death and sparked an interest in the "funny looking" bird and resulted in a fascinating collection of all things Dodo! The collection is now coming up for auction at Summers Place Auctions on Tuesday, 24th September.

The Dodo Collection is accompanied by beautiful contemporary bronzes by Simon Gudgeon and Hamish Mackie as well as intriguing modernist pieces, three lots of incredible torcheres and an array of stunning stone items.

Click here for a pdf of the 24th Sept Home and Garden Auction (with comprehensive photos)

Important Notice
Online Live bidding through 'Summers Place Live' is available for this sale
(No surcharge - normal BP and VAT apply).
To register for this facility, or to leave absentee bids, visit the home screen and click on Register (top right hand corner) or click on the green 'Register to Bid' button below a lot -

Artist Resale Right applies to all Lots with a ▲ symbol --
VAT on the hammer price applies to all Lots with a † symbol

Lot	Title	Estimate	Hammer price
25	A bronze figure second half 20th century 112cm high	£2,500 - £4,000	£2,000	View
26	A bronze figure of a mother and child mid 20th century 79cm high overall	£3,000 - £5,000	-	View
27	An historically important reinforced concrete portion of the Berlin Wall comprising four sections, with stencilled graffiti by Ben Wagin PARLAMENT DER BAUME, DENK-STATTE SICH ZU VEREINEN, HEISST TEILEN LERNEN (Parliament of Trees, To Unite Means to Learn to Share) Richard…	£4,000 - £6,000	£13,000	View
28	A Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) Scapular Coracoid, together with a letter from Edith Clark This bone is of great interest, as it is, apparently, the first bone that George Clark found. In her letter to Parkin his daughter Edith writes that he found it by the edge of the marsh and that it…	£8,000 - £10,000	£23,000	View
29	A pair of Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) tibiotarsus, left and right	£4,000 - £6,000	£9,000	View
30	A pair of Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) tarsometatarsus, left and right from the Ralfe Whistler Dodo collection	£4,000 - £6,000	£4,000	View
31	A single Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) tarsometatarsus	£1,500 - £2,500	£2,000	View
32	Two boxes of fragments of egg shells These fragments came from George Clark’s original find of dodo bones at the Mare aux Songes. They passed from Clark’s daughters to Thomas Parkin and thence to the Whistlers. They have always been…	£200 - £400	£950	View
33	A letter from Bessie Clark, dated April 1921, concerning the discovery of Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) bones by her father	£400 - £600	£300	View
34	Strickland H. E and Melville A. G. (1848). The Dodo and its Kindred This legendary and very rare book was the first published on the subject of the dodo and the accuracy of the information contained has never been surpassed. The wonderful lithographic illustrations…	£1,400 - £1,600	£1,500	View
35	Hachisuka. M. (1953) The Dodo and Kindred Birds Published in an edition limited to 485 copies, and illustrated with 22 plates (many in colour), this celebrated book was the culmination of the Japanese authors many years of research and interest in…	£400 - £600	£400	View
36	Freeman Sithole Stone 33cm high (Ref 203)	£150 - £250	£120	View
37	J Kried Bronze 27cm high (Ref 142)	£240 - £350	£240	View
38	A bronze Sculpture of a Dodo Signed M. 12cm high (Ref 146)	£300 - £500	£200	View
39	A carved limestone sculpture of a Dodo 26cm high (Ref 140)	£150 - £250	£150	View
40	A ceramic sculpture of a Dodo 22cm high (Ref 143)	£50 - £80	£50	View
41	▲ David Burnham Smith (ARR) 2005 Ceramic 27cm high (Ref 193)	£30 - £50	£4,200	View

Total lots: 41

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