Art and antiques news from 2004

A POSTCARD sent by Joyce to the publisher Elkin Mathews sold for €12,000 (£8170) in a May 18 sale held by Mealy’s in Dublin.

TWO records of witchcraft trials in 17th century Lübeck were among the more successful lots in an April 19 sale held by Swanns of New York.

THIS punting scene by Whistler is one of some 3000 additional original and reproduction etchings and engravings, mostly full-page and many mounted and titled in ink as well as being mounted, where possible opposite the relevant text, that were to be found in an extra-illustrated 1880, third edition of Philip G. Hamerton’s Etchings & Etchers seen at Bonhams on May 6.

IT was in the summer of 2000 that Fran Foster of Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre took her Antiques For Everyone formula to Glasgow in an attempt to establish a large, good quality, vetted Scottish fair, a feat which previous organisers had failed to achieve.

IN a general sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions on May 13, a copy of J.M. Richards’ High Street of 1938 that was signed on the front free endpaper by W.J. Bassett-Lowke, the proprietor of one of the shops illustrated in the work’s coloured litho illustrations by Eric Ravilious, was sold for £1150.

THERE is nothing like a modestly estimated, old English collection of Chinese art to lure London’s specialist trade to the provinces.

The highlight of the sale conducted by Mallams of Bocardo House, Oxford on May 26 was this rare mahogany Windsor chair (shown right) consigned for sale from a deceased estate in the Cherwell Valley of North Oxfordshire.

THE catalogue at Hampton and Littlewood’s (15% buyer's premium) April 28-29 sale may have been a model of its kind but even Homer nods… and Mr Hampton did so while “late-night cataloguing” this sentimental little group, right.

THE West Midlands auctioneers Fieldings (12.5% buyer’s premium) are making something of a habit of getting impressive prices for market-fresh watercolours by the Newlyn School painter Walter Langley (1852-1922).

THE emphasis in two photograph auctions held last month was very much on 20th century material, although at both events the big money spinner came from their smaller 19th century sections in the form of collections of anthropological interest.

Auctioneer Richard Bromell of Charterhouse Auctions (15% buyer’s premium), Sherborne had listened with reserved interest to a client who described a gilt blue glass decanter in his possession “almost identical” to a pair catalogued as in the manner of James Giles c.1770 that had featured in a 1968 edition of Country Life.

WITH the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar beckoning next year, and market-fresh, unrestored marine pictures in ever-dwindling supply, it was hardly surprising to see this exceptionally well-preserved Panorama of Portsmouth Harbour, right, by Thomas Elliott (fl. 1790-1800) inspire intense, multiple-estimate bidding at Christie’s South Kensington’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) May 26 Maritime Sale.

SOTHEBY’S Bond Street (20/12% buyer’s premium) took their first tentative step into the world of 20th century Asian art on May 6 with a 173-lot mixed-owner dispersal of Chinese, Japanese and Korean paintings, prints, posters, sculpture and ceramics on May 6.

Aurel Stein on the Silk Road, by Susan Whitfield, published by the British Museum Press. ISBN 0714124168 £18.99hb SIR Marc Aurel Stein, the 19th century Hungarian-born explorer, adventurer and archaeologist, sent home more than 40,000 cultural treasures from the wilds of Western China, making eight major expeditions along the Silk Road nearly a century ago and following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and the 7th century Buddhist pilgrim monk Xuanzang.

ONE of the most unusual disputes concerning an item sold at auction comes full circle on Wednesday, with the object being put up for sale once more.

SCATTERED amongst the colourfully decorated but fairly routine European-taste 18th century famille verte and famille rose bowls, plates and tea services that comprised the bulk of Christie’s King Street’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) 214-lot European collection of Chinese Export ceramics on May 11 was a handful of more unusual entries for which buyers paid a premium.

THE way Bonhams’ (17.5% buyer's premium) empire has adapted to the received wisdom that specialisation is a key to today’s macro auction environment is to have niche markets catered for at different outposts. Among the areas catered for at the Midlands branch at Knowle are such widely known ones as mechanical music and railwayana and, in ascending degree of arcane nature, wireless sets, optical instruments, firemarks, truncheons and tipstaffs.

For 30 years, the props that have given authenticity to many of viewers’ beloved TV and movie costume dramas, have been supplied by West London specialists Period Props & Lighting.

FIRST dealers were subjected to the data protection scam – now the trade are being alerted to a health and safety con.

MANY of the top lots among the 725 offered at Clarke Gammon Wellers' (15% buyer's premium) April 20 sale came from the owner of an elegant local flat – including a William IV mahogany longcase.