Thursday, July 30, 2026
This month’s Auction Block features a famous spy’s passport, a view of San Francisco when it was a village, a Scandinavian modern desk, a portrait of a Zapotec girl and a needlework picture made in Boston two or three decades before the Declaration of Independence.
Doyle
Kim Philby’s Passport to the Spanish Civil War
Estimate: $3,000–$5,000
Sold for: $14,080
Harold Philby, nicknamed “Kim” after Rudyard Kipling’s child spy, was one of the British double agents known as the Cambridge Five. He obtained this passport — which sold for nearly three times its high estimate — while covering the Spanish Civil War for the Times of London. He joined MI6 at the start of World War II and by 1949 was its top Washington representative. Early in 1963, tagged as “the third man,” he fled from Beirut to Moscow.
Christie’s
San Francisco, 1826
Estimate: $30,000–$50,000
Sold for: $82,550
At the online auction “America 250: Important Artifacts and Documents of History,” this watercolor by William Smyth (1800-1877), captioned “Mission of San Francisco, Upper California,” sold for well over its high estimate. Smyth was an admiralty mate and artist on Capt. Frederick William Beechey’s expedition aboard the Blossom, which sailed through the Golden Gate on Nov. 6, 1826, when the population of San Francisco was approximately 260.
Weschler’s
Peter Lovig Nielsen Teak Desk
Estimate: $50–$100
Sold for: $700
Despite “various condition issues,” including a detached top and missing hardware, this teak desk sold for seven times its high estimate at Weschler’s June 23 Metro Online auction. Peter Lovig Nielsen (1929-2007) trained as a cabinetmaker before studying furniture design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. His minimalist creations contributed to the popularity of Scandinavian modern design in the 1950s and ’60s.
The Potomack Company
Gustavo Montoya, “Niña Tehuana”
Estimate: $8,000–$10,000
Sold for: $11,000
Born in Mexico City, Gustavo Montoya (1905-2003) entered the city’s art school, the Academia de San Carlos, at age 14. On a government grant, he studied in Europe and lived in Paris. Earlier, he worked as a poster illustrator in Hollywood. He is best known for his paintings of Mexican children in traditional clothing, such as this oil, signed at lower right. “Tehuana” is the Spanish term for a Zapotec woman from the Tehuantepec region.
Bonhams
A Fine Needlework Picture
Sold for: $25,600
This framed Boston needlework picture in wool and silk on linen, c. 1750-60, was part of the “American Stories: Celebrating 250 Years of Independence” auction at Skinner Marlborough, acquired by Bonhams in 2022. Elements such as the foreground stag hunt, the sheep and the pet dog are consistent with the “Fishing Lady” group. Unsigned, it descended in the family of Exeter merchant Benjamin Clark Gilman without attribution.