Saturday, May18, 2013
A Great Discovery at Bonhams
When I get up every morning, I like to go on the Net and read the newspapers. I usually read The New York Times, Washington Post, The Globe and Mail (Canada) The National Post (Canada) , and The BBC, to name a few. So when I visited The Globe and Mail , I was surprised to see an article about models*. I placed the asterisk (*) there, because I had mistakenly called those soldiers "toys", when they were in fact models!
(Please click on the above link to be redirected to the article)
I immediately sent Mr. James Opie , the specialist on Toy soldiers at Bonhams, the link. I had made contact with James close to a year ago, when I wanted to expand my blog articles,and James helped me out. I wrote an article about the fine toy soldiers that Bonham's often has up at auction. At the time though, I was so busy writing articles, as I still am (usually 1 a day), that I did not notice a great feature that Bonham's has. This great feature is the ability to magnify their images to see detail. When I discovered this feature, I was in total amazement. The reason is that I like to see detail, and being able to see detail in toys is great, especially if you're a bidder.
With today's global economy, even antiques have gone global. No longer are people limited to bidding on articles in their country. Now they can bid internationally. Of course, you've seen in movies how collectors have bid on $100,000,000 paintings by the French Masters. Auction house employees are photographed holding phones as the bidders in other parts of the world are busy instructing the to bid higher. But today, anyone can bid anywhere around the world on items up at auction. And that's the marvel of the Net and the adaptation of fine auction houses such as Bonham's.
Of course, I'll now return to James Opie's realm of fine antique toy soliders and check out the fine detail on selective items, and for sure, I'll post again. As for today's post, I decided to select finely-crafted model trains. I asked James to ask the specialist on trains (toys), if I might use Bonham's fine train items for today's post. James got back to me, and said that Mr. Leigh Gotch had given me the "go-ahead". I immediately wrote back to thank him.
I had wanted to use an outstanding antique doll from another auction for purposes of illustrating the value of the magnification feature on Bonham's website, but I need the permission of that specialist. I just received the go-ahead this morning (Wednesday, May 22, 2013). Rachel Gotch is that specialist in the realm of Early Dolls, and this particular doll is certainly "early" - 1750 to be exact. That's 26 years years before America's Independence! Can you imagine how much information such a specialist as Rachel has to have in order to write up the descriptions ofor this category and its listings?
This is the actual listing at Bonhams
Here's the straightforward screen capture image
I didn't do any sharpening in Photoshop.
The initial image size at Bonham's is very large.
A screen capture of the head of this outstanding doll from so long ago.
The hand painted facial features, the diminutive tiny cracks on the face, the fine hair all are just super!
A screen capture of the first magnification.
There's plenty of fine detail to see, and I haven't even sharpened the image!
Exquisite!
However, I've included the link below.The item in question is Lot # 477- "An Important George II wooden doll, English, circa 1750." When you magnify that particular item , you will see "detail" as you've never seen before on an item. I won't say any more than that, to allow you to discover this for yourself!
When you click on any image at Bonham's, the image will magnify, and you will arrive at the window above. When you then click on the + or - symbols, you will correspondingly see an enlarged or reduced image.
***When you apply the magnification feature, you will need to wait a few seconds for the image to reformat too the larger dimensions.
***When you apply the magnification feature, you will need to wait a few seconds for the image to reformat too the larger dimensions.
* All of the image presented today, are large-sized, however, I couldn't fit them into the blog space.
So if you double-click on any of the images today, you will get a large image.
This will allow you to see the fine detail!
I included an example of the written description of the model train below.
I don't know much about model or toy trains, but the written description certainly would be of benefit for anyone potential bidder who knows his/her train models!
Above is a trio of 3 images in succession of enlargement size. This will give you an example of the importance of the magnification feature at Bonhams website.
In closing, I would be amiss, if I did not comment on the outstanding photography at Bonham's, especially for the train models presented today. The images would seem to be "easy" to photograph, but I know from personal experience as a photographer that expertise went into taking these photos by highly-qualified pros.
You need to know your lighting, and be able to both capture the highlights (bright areas), as well as the shadow (dark areas). Then there is the question of focus - not the easiest to do when the subject is close up, and at a diagonal. Lastly, there is the question of dust. Setting up any of the above images requires skill, and by the time you are ready to take the photo, some dust will have fallen on the items. Even beforehand, I'm sure there was some dust, so the items had to be carefully handled, cleaned, and dust blown off. And of course, these items would pick up fingerprints, so cotton gloves had to be used.
When you visit sites like Bonhams, even as myself when I am not buying anything, you appreciate what these excellent and wonderful companies offer not just to potential buyers, but to anyone interested in learning about a topic. And Bonham's certainly has a library of topics!
It doesn't get any better than that!
Thanks for dropping by, and please go to the links to see the magnifications fo the train images. They're better than I could present, since I had to resize them.
And as always,
have a great weekend,
wherever you may be,
Stacey
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