Art and antiques news from 2004

THERE were two copies of Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesties Fleet in a Sotheby’s New York sale of June 17.

IN the past week dealers have been bombarded by letters ordering them to register and send off payments linked to anti-money laundering measures.

CARAYOL'S (19.73/16.14% buyer’s premium) annual two-day sale at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz was staged this year in collaboration with Paris firm Boisgirard & Associés. With muted success; only a quarter of the 800 lots found takers for a hammer total of around €400,000 (£265,000).

ESTIMATED at £70-100 but bid way past that level by Taikoo Books of York was a copy of Captain R.L. Playfair’s History of Arabia Felix or Yemen…, a Bombay imprint of 1859 which also includes an account of the British settlement at Aden.

WITH the autumn season well underway, it’s good to see a number of dealers promoting business with selling exhibitions which, apart from anything else, present a confident looking trade to the world. Second generation West Sussex furniture dealer Frank Wilson, owner of Wilsons Antiques, has held such an exhibition in Worthing every year since the early 1990s and this autumn’s event will run from September 28 to October 2 at his showrooms at 45-47 New Broadway, Tarring Road.

FROM October 1 to 5, for the fifth year running, West Country organiser Louise Walker stages The Harrogate Antiques Fair at the International Centre in the heart of the North Yorkshire town.

FROM October 1 to 5, for the fifth year running, West Country organiser Louise Walker stages The Harrogate Antiques Fair at the International Centre in the heart of the North Yorkshire town.

PEWTER always forms the first section of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) oak sales at Chester, and on September 9 enthusiasts, mainly collectors, were there as usual. Most had their eyes on the obvious star offering, the fine Charles II wriggle-work tankard, top right.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE dealer Mike Golding, whose business Huntington Antiques in Stow on the Wold is known for early furniture, works of art and tapestries, has just sent out his latest catalogue of recent acquisitions, which will comprise his exhibition next month as part of the Cotswold Antique Dealers Association’s annual series of autumn selling shows.

ANTIQUES never have a low profile in Harrogate, but over the next few weeks they will dominate the North Yorkshire town with three fairs in the vicinity and the numerous antiques shops and galleries making a special effort to impress the autumn visitors, traditionally many of them antiques tourists.

AFTER two and a half years of exile from organising (following the sale of Cooper Antiques Fairs to Sue Ede) Reg Cooper, is delighted to be back on the scene.

WITH only eight of the 300 lots bringing four-figure sums, the Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on August 25 was a fairly sleepy summer affair by usual standards at Oxford, but there were pieces of interest throughout for budget-conscious bidders.

TEMPTING though it is to say that word from the Specialised Postcard Auctions (10% buyer's premium) was lost in the post, this midsummer auction on July 5 has slipped through the Antiques Trade Gazette net until now. But the £23,000 sale should be recorded as one of the series which have, for years, been catering for this specialist market.

RIGHT: first editions of The Adventures... and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1892 and 1894) that sold as a pair for £4800 in a Dominic Winter sale of August 25.

THE Rates of Merchandise, that is to say, Subsidy of Tonnage, ...Poundage and ...Woollen Clothes, or Old-Drapery, as they are Rated and Agreed on by the Commons House of Parliament..., a 1660 copy in rebacked contemporary calf of the book of rates required by the passing of that year’s Act of Tonnage and Poundage, was sold for £1000 in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale of June 17.

FRIEZE, the contemporary art fair launched to much critcal and commerical acclaim in Regent’s Park last year, is to have a supporting act this October.

ILLUSTRATED right is a collection of eight Mary Norton first editions in dust wrappers, including copies of her first two children’s books, The Magic Bedknob (1945) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1947), and, of course, a set of the Borrowers titles that made her famous.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE dealer Mike Golding, whose business Huntington Antiques in Stow on the Wold is known for early furniture, works of art and tapestries, has just sent out his latest catalogue of recent acquisitions, which will comprise his exhibition next month as part of the Cotswold Antique Dealers Association’s annual series of autumn selling shows.

PEAK District dealers Peter and Sonia Allerston also provide an interior design service from their premises at Elmton, Derbyshire. Now they have combined the two areas to take their own show on the road to drum up business.

THE Badminton Cabinet, the magnificent 18th century ebony, ormolu and pietra dura cabinet made at the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence and sold by Christie for a record £7.8m in 1990 is to come back on the market again in December with the same auction house.