Art and antiques news from 2004

FEW fair organisers are bolder than Caroline Penman who, for decades, has been putting together such respected and traditional fixtures as the Chelsea and West London Antique Fairs. Not every Penman endeavour succeeds, but Caroline keeps coming up with new ideas and venues and, from September 3 to 5, she moves to East Anglia to launch the Bury St. Edmunds Antiques Fair at The Athenaeum in the Suffolk town’s Angel Square.

LEADING the sale conducted by John Taylors (12% buyer’s premium) in Louth on June 1 was a marine barometer by Rodgerson & Co.

AS a follow-up to last week’s report on the Conan Doyle collection sold at King Street in May, I bring belated news of The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.

JOHN Snow’s best-known work, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, deals with his investigations into the London cholera epidemic of 1831-32.

THE remarkable sums paid in London for high quality Islamic works of art arrived in the provinces in June.

AN ambitious project to record every oil painting in public ownership across the UK has started with the backing of leading lights of the art world.

THE first victory for a new art recovery company, a statue stolen from one of Yorkshire’s finest stately homes almost two years ago has been recovered in Chicago.

BONHAMS are to set up separate client trust accounts for vendors to protect their money during the sale process. They are the first of the three major international auction houses to do so and the move effectively throws the gauntlet down to Sotheby’s and Christie’s to follow suit.

THIS technical marvel of the ancient world, pictured right, known as a Roman glass diatretum or cage cup, was cut out of a single blank of glass to form two layers. The solid inner cup is linked to its outer cage only by a series of delicate struts.

DEALERS should be aware of a stolen cheque scam that targets regular Internet bankers.

TWENTIETH century and Contemporary art underlined their status as the key growth areas for the major auction houses when London’s June round of Part I Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales netted £120.4m. Six months ago the equivalent sales took £94m, while back in June 2003 – when war was raging in Iraq – they could only muster a relatively modest £81m.

THERE was scarcely a facet of numismatic endeavour which was not represented in Baldwin’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale of May 4 and 5 (2018 lots).

IT was amongst the shaded woodland of the Thames Valley that Windsor chairs are thought to have originated. The forerunners of their kind may have been merely a humble form of seating, but, as two lots in forthcoming English furniture sales show, it wasn’t long before the form began to branch out.

THE widow of Baron Heini von Thyssen, the billionaire art collector, has loaned a huge new collection to the museum he founded in Madrid, the Thyssen Bornemisza.

PROFESSOR Edward T. Hall (1924-2001) was a born collector, amassing over a million cigarette cards as a schoolboy at Eton College and later building a celebrated collection of clocks and scientific instruments that was sold at Christie’s King Street last July.

AN autograph sale held by Swanns on April 29 included 11 lots from the George Armstrong Custer collection formed by the late Dr. Elizabeth Atwood, a vet and well-known Custer buff. Seen right is a copy print of a larger image by Timothy O’Sullivan, inscribed “Truly yours G.A. Custer”, which sold for $14,000 (£7955).

THE British Antiques & Collectables Awards 2004 shortlist has been published, with the winners due to be announced at the beginning of August.

IN the last three years Bonhams have bagged several large quality Chinese consignments such as the Cunliffe collection of blue and white and the De Boulay collection sold last November, but this June there were no such dispersals to spark bidding battles between dealers or collectors in their 465-lot auction on June 8. Although few entries flew, there was demand for the best-quality Chinese-taste works and entries with mainland Chinese appeal.

THE point is often made that so-called apprentice pieces or miniatures will command more than their lifesize equivalents. This was certainly the case with the diminutive oak bureau pictured right, a meticulously made and finely-preserved 16 1/2in (42cm) wide 18th century replica of an otherwise standard Georgian form. Estimated at £3000-4000, it proved the winner on an otherwise difficult day at the Netherhampton Salerooms (15% buyer’s premium) on April 28 when it sold at £6000.

THE first part of the library of books on gems and jewellery formed by Henry Polissack, a dealer in antique jewellery who turned his pursuit of works for his own reference collection into a specialist book business, was held in March 2003, but while the Pt. II sale held by Swanns on May 27 of this year was not up to the standard of that first offering, it did contain much of interest.