Auctioneers

FRANCE: AFTER a hearing with the examining magistrate on September 29, leading Paris auctioneer Jacques Tajan has been charged with “suborning a witness and serious breach of trust” over the sale of bronzes by Alberto Giacometti at Drouot in July 1994.

FRANCE: THE French government is to prosecute New York art dealer Adam Williams for handling stolen goods after a painting he bought at Christie’s in London turned out to be Nazi looted art. A successful prosecution could have serious repercussions for the Trade.

UK: SEPTEMBER 22 was a big day for English porcelain, it saw the first part of Bernard Watney’s celebrated collection of early English porcelain go under the hammer at Phillips. A packed saleroom filled to capacity with collectors and dealers contested the 447 lots to over £665,000, way past the pre-sale predictions.

UK: THE Russians had the brains for a head start in the space race but the Americans possessed the capital to fund a sustained interest in rocket programmes.

US: SOTHEBY’S have added a well known public face to their emerging Internet business with the appointment of Chris Jussel as senior vice president of their online auctions associate programme.

SINGLE OWNER collections and strong selectivity are the key factors behind the 19 per cent sterling increase in Christie’s worldwide auction turnover for the first six months of 1999, say the auctioneers.

UK: WHEN the wife of a descendant from the ancient Scottish clan of Macleod walked into the Sussex salerooms of Gorringes with this unassuming little silver tumbler, few realised that it had been witness to a gruesome Highlands murder more than two centuries before.

UK & US: THE former Director of Phillips in America, Paul Roberts, has been appointed both vice chairman of the new-look Edinburgh outfit Lyon and Turnbull and president of Freeman Fine Arts of Philadelphia, with the aim of forging business links between Scotland and America's oldest independent auctioneers.

UK: IT is about as accurate as a relief map moulded from pearlware could be, but why, assembled dealers and collectors at Sotheby’s Gleneagles were asking themselves, was the title of the country to the piece, left, inscibed upside down?

UK: Vectis, the Stockton-on-Tees auctioneers hosted their monthly sale at The Royal National Hotel in London on September 8.

UK: A PRIME piece of Gothic revival furniture, this early Victorian oak metamorphic library armchair, possibly to a design by John Loudon, made £5600 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium) from the Irish trade at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on August 24.

UK: DURING the industrial revolution, speed of production in the workplace was matched only by the consumption of beverage in the public house, and so far as the thirsty labourers were concerned one of the greatest mechanical inventions of the late 19th century was the so-called 'bar-screw'.

UK: THE rumour that the senior executives who have quit Phillips Edinburgh are to set up a rival auctioneers under the Lyon & Turnbull banner has been confirmed.

UK: CONSIGNED to the Taunton rooms of Lawrence’s from a local source was this German tinplate money bank depicting Mickey Mouse with a concertina.

UK: FOLLOWING the sudden departure of two senior men, Graham Child and Joseph Friedman, from Sotheby’s furniture department in London, the auction house has appointed Simon Redburn as worldwide senior specialist of its English furniture department.

FIRST half results for Sotheby’s parent company, Sotheby’s Holdings Inc, show a decline on last year although auction sales results have enjoyed a healthy increase.

UK: TOP price of Christie’s South Kensington (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of toys and dolls on July 29, 1999 was the £1200 which secured this painted wood Noah’s Ark, complete with numerous carved and painted wood animals, which had been estimated at £600-800.

UK: LURKING in the depths of a maritime sale at Henry Aldridge & Son (10 per cent buyer’s premium) in Devizes, Wiltshire, on July 21, was this badge, the most expensive Edwardian badge ever sold at auction.

UK: Rival venture rumoured Five senior staff at Phillips Edinburgh, including the manager Nick Curnow, have resigned and left the company to pursue new interests.

UK: PHILLIPS Cardiff are among the three rooms which will soon close, but they held a good sale on August 4 where this pair of English 17th century brass candlesticks, 61/2in (17cm) high were consigned to the rooms from a private source.