Art and antiques news from 2003

Treasures of the American Arts and Crafts Movement 1890-1920 by Tod M. Volpe, Beth Cathers and Alistair Duncan published by Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500284083 £18.95 (sb)

Apparently consigned for sale by a local lady who had no idea of its commercial potential – it had been acquired as holiday reading when she was a young girl – a 1937 first edition of The Hobbit was sold at £10,300 in a general antiques sale held by Fieldings in Hagley, Worcester-shire, on April 26.

THE Decorative Arts sale on May 19 at Tajan (14.35/20.33% buyer’s premium) was devoted almost exclusively to Art Deco and saw 165 of its 288 lots (57 per cent) find takers en route to a total of €3.18m (£2.2m) including premium. Unlike the sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the catalogue was in French only with no English translations.

The ARTS & CRAFTS section of the most recent of the 20th Century Art & Design sales to be held in Cincinnati by Treadway & Toomey Galleries partnership on May 3 kicked off with a Gustave Stickley dining table at $12,000 (£7360), and Stickley pieces of all shapes and sizes popped up regularly thereafter.

A Directory of Scottish Provincial Silversmiths & Their Marks by Richard W Turner, published by the author, 208 Roundhills, Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 lUN. Tel: 01992 610325 email: richardwturner@ntlworld.com ISBN 1850722935 £18(sb) plus £1pp, UK

Exploring Prehistoric & Roman England, by Barry Marsden, published by Greenlight Publishing, 119 Newland Street, Witham, Essex CM8 lWF. Tel: 01376 521900. email: info@greenlightpublishing.co.uk ISBN 1897738 £15sb

Sussex Silver and its Makers, by Timothy Kent, published by JH Bourdon-Smith Ltd. Copies (sb) available at £23 plus £1.50 postage, UK, from JH Bourdon-Smith Ltd at 24 Mason’s Yard, Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU. Tel: 020 7839 4714

CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).

A man who had a 17th century Dutch panel painting stolen from his home more than 20 years ago has failed in an Appeal Court to win compensation from Christie’s, who offered the picture for sale in 1997. Key to the test case was Christie’s ability to show they had acted in good faith, adding further legal weight to the importance of due diligence.

THE Fine Art Auction Group, who have been building a network of salerooms in the South East and South West over the past two years, have acquired Bristol Auction Rooms.

Dealers on London’s Pimlico Road will learn shortly the results of their efforts to fight rent increases proposed by Grosvenor Estates. A meeting with landlords has been scheduled for June 9 with Grosvenor promising a “positive solution” to the issue. Presumably this will mean reversing earlier proposals to raise rents to £95 per square foot that came after rises from £43 to £65 imposed in December 2000.

Vectis, the largest toy auctioneer in the world, with a turnover of £5m, is to open in America. Bryan Goodall, who has owned the Teesside company for seven years, has recently acquired The Diecast Toy Exchange, an auction house based in York, Pennsylvania.

One of several items consigned to Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury by descendants of the 7th and 9th Dukes of Newcastle for sale on May 13, this Regency mahogany centre table with profusely carved trestle supports in the manner of Thomas Hope surprised auctioneer and vendor alike when it breezed past its £800-1200 estimate to sell for £57,000 (plus 15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

JUNE is very much the traditional month for London’s high season in the art market. However, in the middle of May we had a taster of the frenzied auction activity usually associated with that month, a mini tsunami of high-flying sales with a clutch of dramatic and record-breaking prices.

It seems that in terms of arriving in numbers after none has been seen for ages, novelty lighthouse cocktail shakers are to Yorkshire what No. 9 buses are to central London. In Antiques Trade Gazette No.1589 dated May 17 we illustrated just such a silver-plated shaker which took £1250 at Andrew Hartley’s Ilkley, West Yorkshire sale on April 9-10.

WHILE in New York for the International Fine Art Fair, I dropped into Mallett’s new shop at 929 Madison Avenue. It could not have a better location and it is glamorous enough to have already made its mark in this select corner of Manhattan.

“Mr Woilde, we ’ave come for tew take yew Where felons and criminals dwell: We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly For this is the Cadogan Hotel.” These lines by John Betjeman form part of a poem that marks one of the most notorious incidents in late Victorian society – The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.

It was a poignant irony that the contents of the North Hampshire vineyard that had so impressed Her Majesty should come up for auction in the same month that another offering of Château Mouton-Rothschild was making a less than favourable impression with the British establishment.

OLYMPIA’s Fine Art and Antiques Fair has plenty to interest the decorators but they are guaranteed something eye-catching at the stand of Notting Hill dealers Jay Arenski and Peter Petrou, who have made the unusual and decorative their forte. In recent years the pair caused a stir with a bejewelled mummy case (complete with incumbent) and sold out their stand full of Black Forest furniture, which now graces ski lodges from Aspen to Gstaad.

Many Antiques Trade Gazette readers will be familiar with the name Francis Raeymaekers of ADC Heritage from his days as a dealer in antique silver. After a sojourn in New York, he is back in London with a new venture.