Art and antiques news from 2003

Highlight of the remainder of the Roy Mickleburgh collection sold by Bristol Auction Rooms on June 24 was this rare monkey band automaton, c.1870. The nine-piece chamber orchestra includes no fewer than 43 separate movements operated by a French mechanism and is housed in a rosewood veneered two-part case with a 48-note German-made crankwind barrel organ below playing a choice of seven tunes.

On July 21 and 22, Sotheby’s will be holding a house contents sale at Wormington Manor near Broadway. This was the Worcestershire home of interior decorator, Christopher Rowley whose shop in Lower Sloane Street, Belgravia was a familiar meeting point for his large circle of friends and clients until his death in April this year.

THERE are few better ways of spending a sunny June afternoon than browsing around the gardens and castle of ’s-Gravenwezel, 10 miles outside Antwerp, as a guest of its owner, the legendary Belgian antique dealer and interior decorator Axel Vervoordt.

Apart from their specialist commemorative medal sale, Morton & Eden (15% buyer’s premium) busied themselves with a general 1025-lot sale on May 21 which made a total of £592,877. This fine result was coupled with a reasonably small failure rate of just 12 per cent. This is about the norm for more specialised events but hard to achieve in a general sale.

A watercolour and drawings sale held by Bonhams on June 10 included a small group of E.H. Shepard illustrations from the estate of the late Jean Ames, who as Jean Gourlay had befriended the artist during the late 1930s and early 1940s, prior to his second marriage, and though the saleroom was non-committal on the matter, it is possible that these versions were specially made by Shepard for Miss Ames.

Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg have opened a new London office in Mayfair to replace their recently vacated Grosvenor Street premises. The new premises at 26-27 Albemarle Street are, say the company, a more cost-effective alternative to Grosvenor Street.

LONDON: Police are urging London’s silver and jewellery dealers to be particularly vigilant after a spate of thefts, or attempted thefts, in the West End. In the space of ten days at the beginning of June three shops were hit by thieves including Kenneth Davis Works of Art of King Street who had a Russian gold box by assay master Dmitrii Il’ich Tverskoi stolen by a man at about 4.15 pm on Friday June 13.

ONE place nowadays where the decorator regularly meets the antique dealer is in the garden, and as more and more decorators look outdoors, an increasing number of antique dealers are also tripping down the garden path.

Lisa Watson is one of the young silversmiths featured in Silver Sparks, an exhibition of 47 examples of cutting-edge silver and jewellery made by students and former students of the Bishopsland Workshops in Oxfordshire that are on show at the Gilbert Collection in Somerset House, London WC2 until August 31. Her silver and felt jewellery and accessories can be seen at the show but like several of the other participants, examples of her work can also be bought at the Gilbert Collection Shop.

A bunch of flowers sold to a private buyer brought a welcome fragrance for Christie’s (24-18.5% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) in their auction of Modern and Contemporary Art in Milan on May 26, and proved a powerful attraction, with a full room and numerous bidders on the telephone.

IT’S not all Mod Brit, the modern art market in Britain – there are still buyers who want their heroes and their gardens and during May, Oxford auctioneers Mallams (15% buyer’s premium) were able to supply both markets, albeit at different price levels.

MAYFAIR Orientalist Roger Keverne is offering more than 100 objects in his current Summer Exhibition of Fine and Rare Chinese Works of Art and Ceramics at his gallery at 16 Clifford Street, London W1.

NEW York’s Posteritati Movie Posters, among the world’s leading specialists in the field, hold an exhibition of vintage posters from the MGM musicals of the 1930s to 1950s at their Manhattan gallery throughout July.

“Do you know, if a visitor spends two minutes at each stand at this fair it will take 111/2 hours to get around,” said one prominent dealer at Olympia on the penultimate day of the Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which was held at the West London exhibition halls from June 5 to 15. Actually, it would take a little over 13 hours, but no matter.

Coming up in London: Hidden for over 300 years behind the work of a pupil, this image of one of the world’s most celebrated painters at the age of 28 has only recently emerged from beneath layers of overpaint. This newly discovered Rembrandt self-portrait promises to be the highlight of this summer’s auction season in London and will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s on July 10.

One of the highlights of the English porcelain section of Sotheby’s Olympia’s ceramics sale on July 3 will be a group of pieces from the celebrated Duke of Gloucester Service produced by the Worcester factory c.1775. The service is said to have been made for William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught (1743-1805), younger brother of George III.

The specialist art and antiques insurers AXA Art have issued advice to their clients following the increasing incidence of art theft from country houses during the last few months.

In August Sotheby’s will open a new regional office near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, headed by Mark Newstead. The Staffordshire office will serve clients in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire, as well as North Wales.

THE long-suffering middle and lower ranges of the trade can take little solace from business patterns at the June fairs in London, the hub of the capital’s most intense dealing period. With a total of some 500 professional dealers exhibiting at the major fairs, it was those with the rarer, better quality stock who were making sales, despite high price tags.

There was plenty of evidence of buyers’ appreciation of the sculptural qualities of white-glazed porcelain figures from both English and Continental factories. Early, 1750s English examples are particularly sought after and the June sales offered examples from Chelsea and Bow, while on the Continental front Christie’s had an entire collection of white biscuit and porcelain pieces to sell as part of their single-owner Boulle to Jansen sale.Some of the most expensive are shown here.