Strauss & co - 2017 Mid-year Review

Decorative Arts and Jewellery Cape Town sales have traditionally served as the staging post for the company’s twice- yearly decorative arts sale. The biggest surprise at the March sale occurred when rival bidders chased after two nineteenth- century Imperial bushels – standardised brass measuring containers – offered by two siblings born into a local merchant family. An 1877 engraved bushel, used by the Government of the Cape of Good Hope, sold for R1 875 720, well over its high estimate of R100 000. A similar measure from 1889, used by the Government of the Transvaal, sold for R1 045 856 (high estimate R80 000). Other notable individual sales in the decorative arts category included two silver tablelampsproducedin1999byZimbabwean designer Patrick Mavros, each incorporating a lively family of vervet monkeys, which sold for R443 352 and R477 456 respectively. A Cape of Good Hope Imperial brass bushel, de Grave, Short & Co, London, 1877 Sold R1 875 720 A Transvaal Imperial brass bushel, 1889 Sold R1 045 856 A silver monkey table lamp, No. 2, Patrick Mavros, Harare, 9 September 1999 Sold R443 352 A silver monkey table lamp, No. 2, Patrick Mavros, Harare, 9 September 1999 Sold R477 456 22