Art and antiques news from 2002

LONDON: Mayfair’s Lefevre Gallery, a leading player on the London art scene since it was founded in 1926, is to close.

Alfred Taubman has tendered his widely expected appeal against his price-fixing conviction. The 76-year-old former chairman of Sotheby’s, who could face up to three years in jail when he comes up for sentencing on April 2, has objected to the use of a quotation from 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith.

UK: THE Government have issued a warning to the trade about agencies attempting to cash in on the 1998 Data Protection Act at dealers’ expense.

A jewellery sale held by Sotheby’s on November 27 included a few exhibition and sale catalogues, plus a very rare and important work published in Moscow in 1925 by the People’s Commissariat of Finances.

The bird with the splendid hairdo pictured right is one of five original watercolours, possibly by Madam Knip herself, found in a special copy of Temminck & Knip’s Histoire naturelle des Pigeons of 1801-11 that sold for £30,000 to a private buyer at Christie’s November 28 sale.

Rembrandt the Printmaker by Erik Hinterding, Ger Luijten and Martin Royalton, published by the British Museum Press in association with the Rijksmuseum ISBN 01714126268 £29.99 pb

Tattooing New York City: Style and Continuity in a Changing Art Form by Michael McCabe, published by Schiffer Publishing Co, USA. ISBN 0764313886 and available in the UK at £24.95 from Bushwood Books, 6 Marksbury Avenue, Kew Gardens, Surrey TW9 4JF. email: bushwd@aol.com

Good stock furniture dominated this dispersal at Crowe's Auction Gallery led by a Regency walnut foldover card table.

Fresh supplies of quality antiques may be drying up but collectables such as antique advertising, pot lids and bottles show no sign of running out.

Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy by Luke Syson and Dora Thornton, published by the British Museum Press ISBN 0714128058 £40 hb

COUNTRYWIDE hints that there may be some lift to the general silver market got a further boost at this Staffordshire sale on 28-29 November at Wintertons where one of the main sections comprised 13 silver lots, of which 90 per cent sold to both trade and private bidders with Christmas in mind.

This Edinburgh sale of ceramics and glass on 30 November was notably well attended from the South of England, with dealers from London, Nottingham and Gloucestershire on the floor of the saleroom.

Thomas Webb was one of the two main British manufacturers to produce glass imitating rock crystal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and this 12in (30.5cm) high Marine vase is a substantial example of the type.

Switzerland, Austria, The Pyrenees, the Rockies are all names one readily associates with skiing. Algeria, on the other hand, conjures up sun, sea and beaches but this poster advertising a winter sports week in 1930, 69 kilometres from Algiers, aims to show another side of North Africa.

FRANCE: Paris auction house Drouot reported a slight rise of 0.66 per cent in 2001 turnover to Fr4.11bn (£391m). Art sales rose five per cent to Fr3.47bn (£330m).

Less than a month after Christie’s first sales in Paris, Dominique-Henri Freiche, a director of Groupe Pinault, has replaced François Curiel as President of Christie’s France.

THE Glasgow Boys school of painters will be the subject of the inaugural exhibition at the Fleming Collection at 13 Berkeley Street, London W1 at the end of this month.

Japanese works of art sales will no longer be held on a regular basis by Sotheby’s New York. Specialist Sachiko Hori will be retained by the company, while her co-director Ryoichi Iida will become a consultant.

TRADING Standards officers have issued a warning to the trade to be on the alert for fake Royal Doulton. Several pieces have come to light over the past few months, including Lambeth Ware.

Surrey and Buxton events change hands: A Specialist shows organising firm have expressed confidence in the UK art and antiques trade by moving into the sector for the first time.