Top auction lots sold on the saleroom in 2023: Part II

Oldest Middlesbrough FC jersey - £16,000

Middlesbrough FC jersey dating from 1886-90, £16,000 at Graham Budd.

This Middlesbrough FC jersey dates from between 1886 and 1890 – making it not just the oldest Boro shirt but possibly the oldest Football League shirt extant.

Made like a Victorian dress shirt in a heavy, white wool flannelette with a blue and white polka dot cotton trim it includes the label reading Manufactured by E. Banks, shirt maker Middlesborough. The badge inscribed MFC Erimus is hand embroidered.

London sporting memorabilia specialists Graham Budd concluded the shirt, that had survived in remarkably good condition, had to date from before 1890 as that was the year the club (established in 1876) changed its colours, first to an all-blue shirt, then to all-white and finally to the red they are famed for today.

Estimated at £15,000-20,000, it took £16,000 on March 7 from a buyer using thesaleroom.com.

Self portrait by Jonathan Richardson - £1600

Plumbago on vellum self-portrait by Jonathan Richardson, £1600 at Chorley’s.

Jonathan Richardson (1667–1745) was a prolific painter and sketcher the luminaries of the late Stuart and early Georgian era. However, among more than 1000 drawings he left to his family, were a remarkable series of self-portrait drawings. He is thought to have begun the introspective series around 1728, shortly before he retired from professional life, and continued at a rate on one or two a month for the next decade. Today more than 50 of these self-portraits – mainly graphite on vellum or chalk on paper studies of the effects of aging and changing mood - are known including examples at the Courtauld, the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

A small 6 x 4in (14 x 10cm) plumbago on vellum profile image from 1738 was offered for sale on July 25 at Chorley’s in Prinknash Abbey. It was making a return to the Gloucestershire. Rooms having last sold here in 2010 but has a much earlier provenance to the sale of Richardson drawings held on behalf of his descendants in 1772. It was a purchase for a bidder on thesaleroom.com at £1600 (estimate £100-200).

Silver spoon from Nelson's first service - £3000

Fiddle pattern silver dessert spoon from Lord Nelson’s first personal service, £3000 at Lawrences.

This otherwise mundane late 18th century fiddle pattern silver dessert spoon is from Lord Nelson’s first personal service. Dated 1796 and made by London silversmiths William Eley and William Fearn, it is engraved with Nelson’s ‘San Josef’ crest that depicts the stern of the Spanish warship captured at Cape St Vincent on February 14, 1797.

The crest was granted in March 1797 when Nelson was given the Order of the Bath. However, it was one he used for just two years. Acquiring more titles and decorations after the French fleet was smashed at the battle of the Nile on August 2, 1798, later additions to his canteen (also made by Eley and Fearn) carried the Ottoman Chelengk crest alongside the San Josef device.

It is the knowledge that these pieces were in regular use by Nelson and his circle that gives them such resonance with collectors. This example, estimated to bring £100-150 at Lawrences of Crewkerne on January 17, was bought by a bidder using thesaleroom.com at £3000.

The Auld Lang Syne Sketching Club - £2000

The Minute Book of The Auld Lang Syne Sketching Club, £2000 at McTears.

This handwritten volume bound in maroon calf boards with brass clasp is titled inside The Minute Book of The Auld Lang Syne Sketching Club. It came for sale at Mc Tears in Glasgow on July 20 with a guide of £100-200 but sold via thesaleroom.com for £2000.

This society for Scottish artists living in London had its origins in the Smashers Club, a drawing club created in Edinburgh New Town in 1848.

The founding members were William Fettes Douglas, William Crawford, Thomas Faed, James Archer and John Ballantyne – almost all of whom went on to national recognition. The exact origin of the club’s name is unclear, but it is thought to reference a pub and imply a degree of alcohol consumption.

In 1863, largely due to the relocation of the members, the club removed to London and renamed itself the Auld Lang Syne Sketching Club. New members included Erskine Nicol, John Stirling and Andrew Maclure – all of them names mentioned in the pages of this minute book that documents the events of meetings held at various London hostels.

The opening pages dated May 1865 read: Four members of the Smashers Sketching Club (instituted in Edinburgh April 1848) having become residents in London, it seemed good unto them to reconstitute the Club in the new locality under a new title – namely as the Auld Lang Syne Club – and to this end a preliminary meeting was held at Mr Erskine Nicol’s on Saturday November 21^st 1863. The Smashers present being John Faed, Thomas Faed, Erskine Nicol and John Ballantyne.

John Ballantyne, who is today best known for his 17 canvases showing contemporary artists at work in their studios, painted a series of head and shoulders images of members of the Auld Lang Syne Sketching Club, London, in the 1860s.

Earrings by Carlo Giuliano - £7800

Victorian Etruscan revival gold earrings by Carlo Giuliano, £7800 at Stroud Auctions.

Born in Naples, the revivalist jeweller Carlo Giuliano (1831-95) made his name in London. Arriving in the city in 1860, he worked first from a workshop on Frith Street in Soho supplying jewellery to well-known retailers, and, from 1874, a shop with retail space on Piccadilly. For 40 years, Pasquale Novissimo was the firm’s chief designer.

While the firm would become best known as a maker of Renaissance style jewels, Giuliano’s early work focused on the fashionable archaeological revival inspired by recent finds in Etruscan burial sites. Jewels of this kind appear in the paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

This pair of earrings offered by Stroud Auctions in Gloucestershire are in the form of Etruscan urns or amphorae set with rubies, white enamel and split pearls. They have Giuliano’s first maker's mark, the CG in monogram. Hugely appealing at the estimate of just £200-400, they took a more substantial £7800 from a buyer using thesaleroom.com on March 8.