Rare Monkey Orchestra Automaton Picture Sells for £5,000

A very fine, early, and unusual Monkey Chamber Orchestra Musical Automaton Picture sold for £5,000 (plus buyer’s premium) in Tennants Auctioneers’ Scientific and Musical Instruments, Cameras and Tools Sale at on 29^th September. Made in France, circa 1860, and bearing the signature ‘Riviere’, the picture had a key-wind cylinder movement and played four airs. These superb box framed-format automatons from the early to late 19^th century are usually smaller sized examples featuring cats and dogs.

The top lot of the sale, however, was a fine Violin by John Frederick Lott II (1804- 1870) that sold for £13,000 and was part of a small collection of instruments in the sale that were The Property of a Musician. John Lott, known as Jack, was the most in demand English violin maker of the 19^th century making fine models after the Cremonese masters Guarneri del Gesù and Antonio Stradivari. Further highlights of the Musical section of the sale included a well-made Violin Bow by W. E. Hill & Son, one of the finest makers in the UK (£3,800), a Concertina labelled ‘Boyd & Co’ that sold for £1,400, and a Miyazawa Flute that sold for £850. A small Private Collection of LP’s that sold for a total of £920 and included a copy of COB’s ‘Moyshe McStiff & The Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart’

A Private Collection of Vintage Radios sold strongly throughout and achieved a total hammer price of £10,870 for the 62 lots. Highlights included a good 1937 Philco type V537 ‘The People’s Set’, which sold for £950 – thought to be a new auction record for the model. Cameras and photographic equipment proved in demand too, with top lots including a Hasselblad 503CW Camera with a Carl Zeiss lens that sold for £1,200, and a Tomiyama Art Panorama 170 Camera with a Rodenstock lens that sold for £1,000. Finally, a Davy Mining Safety Lamp sold for £2,000.

The sale resulted in a total hammer price of £108,640, with an 89% sold rate for the 418 lots.

View Sale Results