A conjuring drum from Lapland, with an almanac cut on a piece of wood.
Several sections in silver of a Turkish galley, a Venetian gondola, an Indian canoe, and a first-rate man-of-war.
A Saxon king's mace used in war, with a ball full of spikes, and the handle covered with gold plates, and enamelled, sold for £37 8s.
A gorget of massy gold, chased with the manner of a battle, weighing thirty-one ounces, at £3 10s. per ounce, was sent to the Mint.
A Roman shield of buff leather, covered with a plate of gold, finely chased with a Gorgon's head, set round the rim with rubies, emeralds, turquoise stones, in number 137, £132 12s.
The pictures, taken from Whitehall, Windsor, Wimbledon, Greenwich, Hampton-Court, &c., exhibit, in number, an unparalleled collection. By what standard they were valued, it would perhaps be difficult to conjecture; from £50 to £100 seems to have been the limits of the appraiser's taste and imagination. Some whose price is whimsically low may have been thus rated from a political feeling respecting the portrait of the person; there are, however, in this singular appraised catalogue two pictures, which were rated at, and sold for, the remarkable sums of one and of two thousand pounds. The one was a sleeping Venus by Correggio, and the other a Madonna by Raphael. There was also a picture by Julio Romano, called "The great piece of the Nativity," at £500. "The little Madonna and Christ," by Raphael, at £800. "The great Venus and Parde," by Titian, at £600. These seem to have been the only pictures, in this immense collection, which reached a picture's prices. The inventory-writer had, probably, been instructed by the public voice of their value; which, however, would, in the present day, be considered much under a fourth. Rubens' "Woman taken in Adultery," described as a large picture, sold for £20; and his "Peace and Plenty, with many figures big as the life," for £100. Titian's pictures seem generally valued at £100.[[194]] "Venus dressed by the Graces," by Guido, reached to £200.
The Cartoons of Raphael, here called "The Acts of the Apostles," notwithstanding their subject was so congenial to the popular feelings, and only appraised at £300, could find no purchaser![[195]]
The following full-lengths of celebrated personages were rated at these whimsical prices:
Queen Elizabeth in her parliament robes, valued £1.
The Queen-mother in mourning habit, valued £3.