Auctioneers

Sotheby’s has something special to offer for the Paris drawings fest – a single-owner collection formed by a dedicated couple that, say the auctioneers, is the fruit of a life dedicated to a passion for painting and drawings.

Flash from the past at the Diss rooms of TW Gaze (18% buyer’s premium).

A painting by the obscure Welsh artist James Dickson Innes (1887-1914) generated keen bidding at Essex saleroom Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) on February 26.

There is, of course, no shortage of works on paper to be found on sale at the Drouot auction centre either in the form of dedicated auctions or as sections within mixed-discipline sales.

Two opposing views on the big questions facing the trade… This week we ask two auctioneers about the best strategy regarding the positioning of the best lots in a sale.

A likely candidate as highlight of the year for Exeter auction house Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium) will be the £305,000 Hans Coper vase (ATG last week, No 2332).

This 23in x 2ft 7in (59 x 80cm) oil on canvas is attributed to Blanche Hoschedé-Monet (1865-1947), the step-daughter and daughter-in-law of Claude Monet.

Dwarfed as they were by the £440,000 oil of St John the Evangelist (see ATG last week, No 2332), a number of other lots helped to make Holloway’s (20% buyer’s premium) first major sale of the year in Banbury on February 27 an event to remember.

A sensational result emerged for the artist-potter Hans Coper (1920-81) at the 20th Century & Contemporary sale at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter.

Clients of the collapsed Australian auction house Mossgreen are preparing to challenge the fees being demanded by firm’s administrators to collect their own goods.