The Bill Terry Archery Collection

Bishop & Miller present The Bill Terry Archery Collection, a single-owner sale of 245 lots tracing the history of archery from antiquity to the 20th century. The earliest pieces include Greek arrowheads of the 5th–3rd century BC, a Roman archer’s thumb ring, Chinese Liao dynasty bone arrowheads and medieval arrowheads. Later equipment includes a William IV carved pine quiver dated 1832, a 19th century stone bow, an Indo-Persian bow and a Japanese hamayumi, alongside 20th century bows and arrows by Apollo, Jaques and Deryck Rowe, quivers, bow cases, crossbows and treen thread waxers.

The sale includes a large group of archery society medals, with Grand National Archery Society prizes from meetings at Exeter, Norwich and Oxford, and medals from the Royal British Bowmen, John O’Gaunt’s Bowmen and the Toxophilite Society. Works of art include a Japanese bronze of Emperor Jimmu, a bronze huntress by Dimitri Chiparus, Staffordshire archer figures, a late Victorian timepiece in the form of an archery target and a quantity of Royal Doulton ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’.

Among the prints and pictures are a 1794 mezzotint of the Society of Royal British Archers meeting at Gwersyllt Park, ‘A View of the Shooting for the Silver Arrow at Harrow on the Hill’, John Leech’s ‘The Fair Toxophilites’ and a woodcut by Sir William Nicholson, along with a Technicolor poster for The Adventures of Robin Hood. Welcome to the sale!