Auctioneers

UK: TURNOVER figures posted by provincial auctioneers for the year January to December 1999 revealed a turnaround in the positions of the top two firms.

UK: THIS Linthorpe pre-Columbian-style pottery vessel, designed by Dr Christopher Dresser during his time as Art Superintendent at John Harrison's Middlesborough factory c.1879-81, was sold to London's New Century by Darlington auctioneer Thomas Watson & Son for £1500 (plus 15 per cent premium) on March 21.

CHRISTIE'S and Sotheby's announced a substantial increase in turnover for 1999, each registering total sales in the world art market of $2.3 billion (£1.46bn).

UK: SOTHEBY'S are to sell a remarkably well-preserved and restored 18th century Spitalfields London town house and its contents, the home of the late Michael Gillingham, a well-known London art and antique dealer.

AUSTRIA: THE ENTRY of Jörg Haider's far-right Freedom Party into the Austrian government could have repercussions for the country's art market, warns Otto Hans Ressler, director of Austria's second-largest auction firm Wiener Kunst.

SOTHEBY’S will raise their buyer’s premium on April 1, one day after Christie’s are due to do the same.

FRANCE: ARTEMIS, the holding company belonging to Christie’s owner François Pinault, have acquired the Paris auction group Piasa.

UK: The factors which make for a desirable cased fish are four-fold: the case (bowfronts are most popular), the label of a good taxidermist such as Cooper, condition and (as the joker in the pack) the beast itself.

UK: HAVING ascribed it to the Italian School of the 13th/14th century in their auction advertisement, Hy. Duke now believe that this 73/4 x 9in (20 x 23cm) oil on panel, right, is in fact the pinnacle – missing for 150 years – of the Madonna panel by Nardo Di Cione (1343-1366).

From a Ligurian Spring by Henry Herbert Lathangue (1859-1929) sold for £330,000 plus 15 per cent premium at Bearne’s Spring Seasonal Sale, Exeter on March 1.

UK: This pair of 8ft 2in (2.5m) high polished steel gates inset with Lalique glass segments were bid to £13,000 at Christie's South Kensington on February 9.

UK: Spink's move from the King Street premises the firm have occupied for over three-quarters of a century, also marks a major re-assessment of the way they do business.

US: THE sudden resignations of Sotheby's chief executive Diana 'Dede' Brooks and chairman Alfred Taubman have come in the wake of the investigation into alleged commission fixing which has seen the company's stock plummet by 60 per cent since the start of this year.

UK: EVERY so often a dealer will acquire an object of academic interest for relatively little money and put it into an auction to see how much it will make.

FRANCE: PHILLIPS' new owners, luxury goods group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, are to acquire Tajan, the leading French auction house.

UK: A HIGHLY important painting by the early Italian master Cimabue (c.1240-1302) has been discovered by Sotheby's at Benacre Hall, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, home of the reclusive Sir John Gooch, 12th Bt., who died last year.

UK: While the art market has been quieter in the provincial salerooms since the New Year, an exception was provided by this oil on canvas View of Venice at the Entrance to the Grand Canal, which appeared at Lawrence's of Crewkerne on February 17.

CHRISTIE'S had their best ever year in 1999, exceeding the peak of annual turnover achieved at the height of the last art boom.

UK: The UK Office of Fair Trading and the European Union regulatory body for competition have begun their own investigations into alleged commission fixing by Sotheby's and Christie's.

This simple 91/2in (24cm) diameter pottery 'souvenir' plate, made in Llanelly c.1910 and decorated with Welsh folk heroine Mari Jones in the manner of the factory's most famous painter, Samuel Shufflebotham, sold to a Pembrokeshire collector at £1700 (plus 15 per cent premium) at the Carmarthen rooms of Peter Francis on January 25.