Greek, Roman, Egyptian & Other Antiquities

Egyptian material is the current antiquities favourite, especially Egyptian sculpture, so perhaps it was no surprise to see just such a piece top Sotheby’s November 6 sale of antiquities from the Charterhouse collection.

Antiquities dealers could find their trade in legally exported artefacts threatened despite due diligence if the Egyptian government succeeds in reversing Sotheby’s sale of a granite bust of Ramses II.

The extent to which a provincial auctioneer should be liable for underselling a work of art is again under scrutiny as a vendor threatens legal action.

GERMANY: Round about the year 286AD times were very interesting in Britannia. Some small documents of this small and little known facet of British history appeared in the Lanz (15% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich on May 27.

A new auction record for any antiquity was set at Christie’s last week on June 13 when the 5ft 3in (1.6m) high ancient Roman marble statue of Venus, pictured right, sold for £7.2m.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme, which improves the chances of archaeological objects found by members of the public being recorded properly, has secured ongoing funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

It was standing room only at Sotheby’s Bond Street on February 26 when the auctioneers sold the David Sylvester collection. In a room packed with dealers, collectors and friends of the late art critic, plus a phalanx of Sotheby’s staff manning a bank of telephones, the auctioneers offered 149 lots of paintings, drawings, sculpture, tribal art and antiquities, and as lot after lot outstripped the estimates, it was clear that their £1m projection was going to be dramatically exceeded.

USA: The annual general sale of good quality classical coins (446 lots) hosted by the triumvirate of Baldwins (London), Markov (New York) and M&M (Washington DC) took place in the Big Apple on January 17.

IT CANNOT often be said of an auction catalogue that its lot numbers will be used for a very long time, perhaps a century or more, as reference numbers in a standard academic publication. The catalogue of Numismatik Lanz of Munich is just such a one.

Just like the following week’s 20th Century Italian sales, Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) October 18 inaugural theme sale exclusively devoted to Greek art notched up selling rates that belied the pessimism prevailing in so many other sectors of the market.

Lawyers have filed a motion attempting to quash a case that has the potential to blight the entire trade in Egyptian antiquities in the United States.

US: THIS 10in (25.5cm) high painted wood figure of an Egyptian offering bearer was described as Middle Kingdom, Dynasty XII in an antiquities sale held by Sloans in their Washington DC rooms on May 9.

A fine example of the memorial coinage to Julius Caesar struck by Octavian, this 30mm diameter example with a fine portrait made E1275 (£790).

A fine piece of calligraphy in gold of the Mameluks in Egypt (c.1400AD – 26mm diam.) made an affordable E200 (£125).

UK: THE subject matter of the Viking collection sold at Spink on March 14 speaks for itself. Not something to appeal to most Antiques Trade Gazette readers it is worth reporting briefly, mainly to demonstrate the skill that resides in London.

ITALY: THIS quasi-Roman coin (34mm) of Hadrian – actually a ‘cabinet piece’ made in 16th century Padua (the main centre for this type of replica) for the more romantic type of collector – made Li500,000 (£170).

FRANCE: A Paris court has refused the request of Christie’s owner François Pinault to revoke the sale of a statue of Pharaoh Sesostris III on the grounds that it was not authentic.