Art and antiques news from 2004

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

A FEW weeks ago, The Guardian published a sensible and responsible feature concerning the current malaise of the antiques trade.

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.

A FEW weeks ago, The Guardian published a sensible and responsible feature concerning the current malaise of the antiques trade.

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.

The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House by Anne Sebba, published by John Murray. ISBN 0719563283 £22.50hb.

PERIOD if possible, but, above all, practical – this seems to be the current code among furniture buyers in the experience of Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer's premium) over the past couple of years.

The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House by Anne Sebba, published by John Murray. ISBN 0719563283 £22.50hb.

WITH giant sales every three weeks, Keys (10% buyer's premium) of Aylsham will cheerfully put two-figure lots under the hammer, but there were also a number of four-figure sellers to help swell the hammer total to £110,000 at the latest 1640-lot outing on June 2-3.

THE 19th century European Paintings sales at Sotheby’s are divided into a number of regionally-themed sections which are enjoying varying degrees of health. Although they continue to have their occasional moments, the formerly booming markets for Orientalist, German and Scandinavian pictures continue to be pale reflections of their former selves.

TWO very strong prices, one in Edinburgh and one in London have underlined the status of the Zeigler as the most fashionable of late 19th century carpets. And the £110,000 and £130,000 bid for Zeigler & Co. carpets at Lyon & Turnbull on March 31 (Antiques Trade Gazette 1636, April 24) and Sotheby’s on April 28 (Antiques Trade Gazette 1641, May 29) had one thing in common – both were made with cream grounds.

AN airheaded and insubstantial vice it might be, but plainly vanity has lasting appeal at auction, judging by the success of the coromandel veneered lady’s box, top right, and the gentleman’s hide toilet case, bottom right, offered at Amersham Auctions Rooms (15% buyer's premium) on June 6.

“A WONDERFUL morning and a dreadful afternoon,” was how auctioneer Elizabeth Pepper-Darling summed up Morphets' (15/10% buyer's premium) 640-lot June 10 sale which was in some ways a microcosm of the auction scene in general.

WHEN does a jumbo tent look sophisticated and soigné? When it houses 77 galleries participating in artLONDON, which took place between June 9-13 at Burton’s Court in Chelsea.

BACK in July 1984, Christie’s took £75,000 (£81,000 with premium) for Thomas Rowlandson’s (1756-1827) pièce de résistance watercolour of Box-lobby loungers.

THE Old Master trade loves a sleeper and at least two dealers were convinced they were on to a major discovery when a woefully under-catalogued “Painter standing beside a canvas depicting cupid, oil on canvas, 45 x 37.5in (1.14m x 95cm)” came under the hammer without any form of attribution or estimate at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire rooms of North East Auctions (15/10% buyer’s premium) on May 23.

AS the hubbub dies down in London, there is no shortage of action in the provinces.

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 rare and unusual mid-18th century mahogany Windsor chair pictured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette No 1643, June 12, was not the only enigmatic armchair in Mallams' (15% buyer's premium) April 22 sale. The supporting cast to that £23,000 chair – an unusual hybrid combining the features of the English country chair with the timber and the modeling of urban cabinetmaking – included a Egyptian Revival walnut tub chair.

WAS it a case of not being market-fresh or a change in fashion that resulted in such a dramatic nose-dive in value for this black chalk, stump and watercolour, right, by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), when it came up at Christie’s King Street on June 3? Against hopes of £40,000-60,000 it scraped home with a final bid of £35,000 (£41,825 with premium) from a private collector.