Art and antiques news from 2004

BOTH visitors and exhibitors were delighted with the Kent Pavilion, the new facility unveiled to antiques buyers at the Detling Antiques & Collectors Fair on July 24 and 25.

GEORGE Graham’s 18th century ebony or ebony veneered bracket clocks are his most traditional and sought-after timepieces, but arguably representing better value for money was this flamboyant ormolu clock offered at Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer's premium) on June 8 that housed one of a small number of George Graham’s non-standard movements.

ANOTHER of the top-priced clocks to feature at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer's premium) on July 2 was this Regency rolling ball skeleton timepiece pictured right, made in Edinburgh by Robert Bryson after the model by Sir William Congreve, the inventor of the rolling ball clock.

THE first outing for Sotheby’s associate Graham Budd Auctions (15% buyer’s premium) offered a large range of sporting memorabilia in a 885-lot sale held at Sotheby’s Olympia on June 9. Football was the most represented sport, contributing to well over half the total number of lots.

Joseph Kishere and the Mortlake Potteries by Jack Howarth and Robin Hildyard, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club, ISBN 1851494626, £25hb. THE only published history of the Mortlake potteries has been a 12-page booklet written by John Eustace Anderson more than 100 years ago. Now, the V&A’s Robin Hildyard has expanded and extended the potteries’ story following much family research by Jack Howarth.

HIGHLIGHT of Sotheby’s (23.92/14.35% buyer's premium) book and manuscript sale on June 30 was Antonin Artaud’s 1947 portrait of his publisher Alain Gheerbrant, pencil, 14 x 20in (35 x 50cm), seen right, that made a double-estimate €210,000 (£140,000) to set a record for an Artaud drawing.

ATTEMPTING to tap into the burgeoning Russian market, Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) appointed Moscow-born Tatyana Barysheva as in-house specialist last year. She is gradually building up a following for sales of Russian silver, vertu and works of art.

FOR the second year running, dealers and auctioneers are to face each other across the football pitch rather than the saleroom in the Antiques Trade Gazette-sponsored annual challenge.

THESE two half-length images of women, right, could hardly be more different in date or technique, but their prices proved as uncannily similar as their poses when they came under the hammer at recent fine art auctions.

LIKE the proverbial bad penny, scam advertising company European City Guide have struck again, targeting antiques dealers in London and the South East.

PART of the large consignment of 18th century English porcelain from a local, mid-Wales private vendor, this 18th century underglaze blue painted Lowestoft cider mug, offered as the final lot in Brightwells’ Ceramics and Glass sale in Leominster on July 21, proved to be the star of the sale.

THE earliest book in English on the subject, John Stalker’s Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing... of 1688 has been described by H.D. Molesworth as “a work of art in its own right... as readily accepted for its literary content as for its technical information”.

CHRISTIE’S have won leave to appeal against the High Court judgment that found them liable to pay damages to Taylor Lynne Thomson in the dispute over the £1.75m Houghton urns.

IN recent years, clock dealers and collectors have adopted ever more exacting condition standards, preferring to wait and pay a premium for timepieces in untouched condition such as the highlight, pictured right, at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer's premium) on July 2.

ANOTHER of the top-priced clocks to feature at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer's premium) on July 2 was this Regency rolling ball skeleton timepiece pictured right, made in Edinburgh by Robert Bryson after the model by Sir William Congreve, the inventor of the rolling ball clock.

HAVING sold her four-storey town house on The Circus, one of Bath’s most prestigious Georgian streets, Dr Teri McGovern announced: “I’m on the move. I came with two suitcases and I’m moving out with two.”

A GANG made off with £400,000 worth of Asian jewellery after fooling a shop owner into believing they were police officers. Pretending to carry out a drugs raid, the men appeared to be genuine policemen with uniforms, radios, evidence bags, bullet-proof vests, and what appeared to be authentic ID and search warrants.

THE new chairman of the National Arts Collection Fund is to stand down owing to the pressures of work.

THE British Antiques and Collectables Award winners have been announced for 2004, making Dreweatt Neate the first firm to win an auction house award twice.

ON July 14 there was a sale at Bonhams (incorporating Glendinings). The return of this appellation to their catalogues will please the sentimental because there is still world-wide affection for the Glendining name.