Art and antiques news from 2005

HOT on the heels of their event at Arley Hall in Cheshire, Cooper Antiques Fairs move on to two more March fixtures, the more notable being the one held this weekend from March 18 to 20 at Powderham Castle, near Exeter in Devon.

Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), the First World War leader known as The Tiger, and also famous as the editor of L’Aurore, who published Zola’s J’Accuse at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, was the subject of an unusual sale at Osenat (15% buyer’s premium) in Fontainebleau on February 13.

by Alex CaponMARKET-FRESH pictures in good condition by major names...meet all three of these criteria and success is virtually assured. And, as was evident at the March 1 sale held in Exeter by Bearne’s (15/10% buyer’s premium), two out of three ain’t bad.

It is not every day a dealer refuses to sell a piece of stock, but that was very much the case with the work shown here, which was the highlight of Sotheby’s Bond Street's (20/12% buyer's premium) sale of the Adler collection last month.

Two one-day events putting the spotlight on art crime will be held in the capital in May.

ONE dealer who concurs with the findings in a recent BADA poll that shop exhibitions play an increasingly important part in business is Wiltshire ceramics specialist (and BADA member) Andrew Dando.

When Bonhams embarked on their first dispersal of the mammoth Zorensky collection of First Period Worcester, there were murmurings in the trade (and presumably some crossed fingers in the saleroom’s ceramics department).

This year’s jewellery sales in the upscale Swiss winter resort of St Moritz – an annual fixture since 1995 – again fomented plenty of interest among the well-heeled private clientele in town at the height of the skiing season.

MARCH is a busy fairs month for many organisers, but none more so than Cooper Antiques Fairs who hold three events, starting this weekend with their long-established fair at Arley Hall, near Knutsford in Cheshire, from March 11 to 13.

Remarkable things continue to happen in the Beswick market. Consider the fortunes of a handful of scarce, but damaged, models seen recently at the Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent rooms of Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer’s premium).

Annie Kevorkian was also the expert at a sale staged by Cannes Auction (19% buyer’s premium) at the Hôtel Martinez on La Croisette on February 20, dominated by a locally-consigned, single-owner collection of Ottoman ceramics.

A local estate was the source of some fine Meiji ivories sold by Cheshire auctioneers Frank Marshall (15% buyer’s premium) of Knutsford on January 11.

Good corkscrews continue to attract solid sums. Alongside the likes of Thomas Lund and Edwin Cotterill, Robert Jones is one of the big names of the English patent market, if only because his so-called ‘Robert Jones II’ is among the rarest and most valuable of all corkscrews.

Duke’s, Dorchester, January 27Buyer’s premium: 15 per centOAK furniture’s rustic aesthetic and its ability to complement modern interiors, has kept it in demand by private buyers and decorators as well as oak dealers, and prices have tended to hold up during the furniture doldrums.

Alongside more traditional antiques and fine art, the March 10 sale at Morphets of Harrogate includes the biannual specialist sale of Arts & Crafts and 20th Century Design and Decorative Arts.

The recent competition seen for rare First World War silks was repeated at the sale conducted by Specialised Postcard Auctions (10% buyer’s premium) of Cirencester on December 6.

On a day when some unusual offerings caught the eye at the Nottingham sale held by Mellors & Kirk, one such lot was a set of 36 Anglo-Indian Company School Delhi or Agra oval miniatures dating to 1827 and depicting India’s nobility and their wives, six of whom are shown right.

THE ATG online price guide has notched up more than 500,000 individual prices for items sold at auction.

by Ian McKayLAST summer, when a large Biggles collection was put up for sale in Swindon, results were a little disappointing – at least for some of those titles offered individually, where some reserves proved too strong for collectors and trade alike – and around half of the 100 lots were bought in – but W.E. Johns’ famous creation certainly does not lack admirers and in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale of February, a much smaller group of Biggles books, mostly from one source, brought good prices.

The Fine Art Auction Group, parent company of Dreweatt Neate Fine Art and Neales of Nottingham, will be the major sponsor of the Art of Dealing conference at the Earls Court Conference Centre in London on May 16.