Art and antiques news from 2001

UK: In the days before Lara Croft burst onto the digitalised scene, playtimes revolved around the handmade charms of Mitzi, Chloe, Witch, Dutch Girl and other pine wood beauties from the puppet stable of Bob Pelham.

With the dearth of fresh-to-the-market quality antiques, the zeal with which dealers seek out sleepers ensures that few lie dormant. Such was the case at Leominster where an 18th century walnut and marquetry commode, 5ft 10in (1.78m) wide, sailed past its £2000-3000 estimate and sold at £11,800 to a Maltese buyer.

UK: Christie’s Continental Furniture sale on July 4 (17.5/10% buyer's premium) included a small nine-lot section devoted to Neapolitan piqué work: tortoiseshell objects inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver, which proved decidedly popular.

UK: Sleek, stylish, Art Deco abstraction is what counts most in a design for Clarice Cliff collectors and this piece, which came up for sale at Phillips (15/10% buyer’s premium) on July 5 possessed it in spades.

NEW YORK-based British-born dealer Adam Williams is expected to appeal against his conviction in a French court for receiving stolen property.

UK: A week of exhibitions and sales of Old Master drawings reached its zenith on July 10 when this miniature silverpoint sketch by Leonardo da Vinci appeared at Christie’s King Street.

UK: EARLY notice that, for the fourth season, The Cotswolds Antique Dealers’ Association is holding a series of selling exhibitions in members’ shops and this year they will take place in eight towns between October 13 and 27.

BONHAMS & BROOKS confirmed on Friday evening that they are to merge with Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, ending a week of speculation that this move was imminent.

GERMANY: Lempertz’ Old Masters in Cologne on May 19 produced a hammer total of DM6.7m (£2.1m) and a surprise price of DM192,000 (£60,000), paid by the Italian trade against an estimate of just DM4000, for a Bildnis eines Singers, a portrait of a singer with crimson turban and coat, his left forefinger resting on a musical score, 3ft 1in x 2ft 6in (93 x 77cm).

THE Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts has acquired one of the world’s most important collections of English Silver, that of Alan and Simone Hartman.

UK: A SOLICITOR’S clerk has been banned from his profession after a tribunal heard how he arranged the theft of valuable works of art to order.

UK: A TEMPORARY export ban on an important reliquary from the Wernher Collection has allowed the V&A to acquire it with backing from the Lottery and the National Arts Collection Fund.

UK: THE biannual sale of ceramics, glass, Oriental wares and decorative arts at Phillips’ Midlands operation saw keen enough trade and private bidding to produce a £138,000 sale total with a very respectable 82 per cent sold by lot.

The two letters IF are the initials of this mug’s owner, but IF could equally be read as an expression of desire, of conditional optimism, when you realise why the mug was made.

UK: If proof were needed that it is collector’s silver that is the most desirable category of ware in today’s market one could have had no better example than the sale held by Bonhams & Brooks (15/10% buyer’s premium) last Thursday, July 5. This 261-lot auction was especially strong on vertu and collectors items swelled by a number of private collections.

FRANCE: There was plenty of auction activity, but few front-line prices, in Lyon in June.

Everyone dreams of coming across a real gem at a car boot sale and this was the story behind a privately entered 19th century micro-mosaic oval panel in this Wotton Auction Rooms Gloucestershire sale on June 12-13.

“WILL SUPERGIRL callously break the hearts of her athletic team mates by winning all the international sports events as her Linda Danvers identity?...” begins the gripping storyline of a 12pp comic strip artwork by Kurt Schaffenberger that sold for £880 in the US section of this online and postal summer comics sale at Comic Book Postal Auctions on June 12.

UK: The white marble form of Cara, the Marquess of Breadalbane’s Venetian Greyhound, was the focus of bidders at Lyon and Turnbull’s sale in Edinburgh on June 30. Royal sculptor Peter Turnerelli (1774-1839), famous for his full-length statue of George III in state robes, modelled the 2ft 2in (65cm) high statue for the Park Lane apartment of the Breadalbanes, and invoiced the Countess for £210 in February 1811.

Antique Kilims of Anatolia by Peter Davies, published by WW Norton & Company Ltd. ISBN 0393730476 £40 hb.