Art and antiques news from 2000

UK: Arts Minister Alan Howarth welcomed the launch last month of ArtResolve, a non-profit making company specialising in the resolution of disputes about works of art and antiquity.

UK: BLOOMSBURY Book Auctions, London has been sold to Stocklight Limited, owners of Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books and the Shapero Gallery.

AUSTRALIA: BACK in the 1980s a local election campaign in a certain southern hemisphere country featured posters with the simple combination of a photo of the opposition candidate above the words GET THIS BASTARD.

An early 19th century blue transfer printed oval footed bowl, 11in (29cm) wide, depicting the death of Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805 which sold at The Bristol Auction Rooms on July 25.

UK: THE Culture Select Committee investigating the illicit trade of cultural goods has stopped short of demanding tough legislation that might inadvertently harm legitimate business.

A House of Commons Committee has been appointed to examine the Kent County Council Bill in detail.

LONDON: Bermondsey’s The Old Cinema antiques warehouse is to move out of the area after the building it occupies has been sold for redevelopment.

SOTHEBY’S profits fell 5.2 per cent for the second quarter of 2000, against the same period last year, despite revenue rising. The company largely blames Internet expenses and the $3.8m costs of the anti-trust investigation for this drop.

UK: LONDON-based auctioneers PHILLIPS’ bid to join Sotheby’s and Christie’s in the premier league of the auction world appears to be making some progress as they reported a 48 per cent increase in hammer sales for their London rooms for January to July this year.

UK: THE current fashion for English porcelain may lean towards the earliest pieces of blue and white, but it was not the case 30 years ago when the vendor of this First Period Worcester yellow ground mask jug, c.1760 purchased this piece for £3800 at the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair.

A UK SECURITY marking company has launched a new anti-theft process that effectively gives each item covered its own DNA profile for the police to identify.

THE best bottle ever dug? This was the question that auctioneer Alan Blakeman of BBR was asking himself after an extraordinary price was tendered by an American collector at the Elsecar salerooms on July 9 for this early shaft and globe example.

FRANCE: REMBRANDT Bugatti, the sculptor brother from the famous racing car family, has been a major saleroom force for some years and there is no stopping him at the moment to judge by recent sales in Paris.

THE German Society of Art Auctioneers is to consider acting as an Internet portal for its members, so that they can all make a “joint appearance” together.

OLYMPIA have made dateline changes at their flagship antiques event in London, the June Fine Art and Antiques Fair, and they will apply to both the gallery and the ground floor.

THE golfers who tee-off at St Andrew’s on Thursday might stand a better chance of winning the Open if they forced Tiger Woods to play with this locally made ball, rather than the standard ultra-scientific balata.

THE working group that has been debating how to help the trade plan and regulate effective Web business has set an agenda for the next 12 months.

UK: PAUL Henry’s A Village in Connemara which sold for £58,000 at Edgar Horns in Eastbourne on July 12. The 16 x 24in (41 x 61cm) oil on canvas is fully signed and still bears an original paper label on the stretcher with title and artist, though the frame is a replacement.

SOTHEBY’S are celebrating setting the top price achieved for an object at auction on the Internet with the $7.4m paid on June 29 for a first printing copy of the American Declaration of Independence.

UK: JOHN Russell of Falkirk was a barometer maker to the Prince Regent and, as a result, this mahogany wheel-shaped example with the Prince of Wales feathers commanded considerable interest from leading London dealers at Woolley and Wallis’s Salisbury salerooms on July 4.