Art and antiques news from 2003

Coming up in Buckingham: A clockwork model of a V5 Citroën half-track – the first vehicle to cross the Sahara during the 1922 trans-Sahara expedition – is expected to make over £3000 when it is sold by Vectis, the Teesside auction house, in April.

Small is beautiful in the antiques world where miniature versions can command as much, sometimes more, than their full-size counterparts. That was certainly the case at Christie’s South Kensington last month when the small collection of miniature top hats and one bowler pictured above was pursued way beyond its £300-500 estimate to sell for £2400 (plus 17.5% per cent buyer’s premium) in the auctioneers’ March 12 costume and textiles sale.

Provenance, Provenance Provenance, this was the key to the runaway success of Sotheby’s 539-lot, £1.66m sale of items formerly owned by the famous engineer James Watt and his son James Watt Junior that had been carefully passed down through his family.

THE COVER of the catalogue issued by Cheffins for their Cambridge sale of March 19 made clever use of what I take to have been the coloured title of the 1794 French edition of Moses Harris L’Aurelien... that they sold for £4800. In rubbed red morocco gilt, this famous study of moths and butterflies was a large paper copy illustrated with 44 coloured plates, with text in French and English.

HELD a little earlier in the month than usual, The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair will run at its now trademark marquee in Battersea Park, London SW11 from April 8 to 13.

MAYFAIR’s smart antiques market, Grays, is close enough to Bond Street to attract its fair share of fashionistas, but now it has become a couture centre itself with the opening last week of the luxuriously appointed Vintage Modes.

The death of Walter Moorcroft last year and the strong prices at Sotheby’s recent dispersal of the Wade collection have reinforced the popularity of this market, especially for the earlier Macintyre wares. A small collection at Bonham’s sale in Bury St Edmunds yielded the following results.

Minton did majolica just a bit better than anyone else – not just in their large monumental and sculptural pieces but also in the smaller and more mundane wares.

Peter Rindisbacher (1806-1834) was a Swiss-born artist who was the first Western artist to leave a significant visual record of colonial frontier life in Western Canada during the early 19th century.

THE stock market may be going down and tourists numbers dropping thanks to foreign conflict, but in Pimlico Road, antiques dealers are facing the biggest threat from their second huge rent hike in just over two years.

THE National Art Collections Fund (the Art Fund) are marking their centenary by calling for the whole process of saving art for the nation to be overhauled.

A rare discovery of two completely unknown paintings by Goya has aroused considerable interest in Madrid. Discovered during a visit to a family in Madrid, the two paintings of Tobias and the Angel and The Holy Family were identified by the picture expert of Alcalá Subastas, Richard de Willermin.

RUMOURS that the Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair, scheduled for April 8-13 in Battersea Park, London has been cancelled are completely untrue, say the organisers.

Christie’s have announced that a newly-formed department dedicated to single-owner collections and house sales will be headed up by Orlando Rock, assisted by Andrew Waters as director.

The classic car market has received a twin injection of interest, with Sotheby’s seeming set to return to the fray and a new face entering the Olympia arena. H&H Classic Auctions of Warrington have established a global reputation with their sales at Buxton, in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Riding high on the success of a recent European record for a Mercedes Benz 300SL (£174,000), they are now looking to expand into London.

Louise MacBain, who recently quit as chief executive of auctioneers Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, has agreed to acquire Art & Auction magazine from LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

FROM April 3 to 6 the Spring staging of the Antiques For Everyone fair fills Hall 5 of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre with what the organisers always claim to be more than 600 dealers, staked out in the now familiar format of Section One and Section Two.

WHAT business there was came on the final day of the Cheshire County Antiques Fair, staged by Cooper Antiques Fairs at Arley Hall over the weekend of March 14 to 16.

YET again the Bath Decorative and Antiques Fair, held at the Pavilion, North Parade from March 5 to 8, proved a huge success with both the 46 exhibitors and the myriad dealer customers.

ENERGETIC Essex organiser Robert Bailey is never more relaxed than at his London flagship fixture, the Claridge’s Antiques and Fine Art Fair which will be staged at the exclusive Mayfair hotel for the ninth time from April 2 to 6.