Auctioneers

UK: PHILLIPS are continuing the restructuring of their regional sales business with the closure of three more auction rooms: Glasgow, Cardiff and Retford will all shut by the end of September and be replaced by offices for dealing with clients.

UK: JAPANESE lacquer is a complex form of decoration requiring the painstaking application of layer upon layer and incorporating different materials to build up the finished pictorial surface.

UK: A MAN charged with stealing part of the treasured collection of a rugby legend from Sotheby’s faces a retrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict.

UK: THE billiard cue as we know it today is a relatively recent addition to the sport: the billiard mace – with a curved and tapered grip and a block tip – was used from the earliest days of the game in the 16th and 17th centuries right up to the turn of the 19th century.

UK: DESPITE a catalogue entry which cited this walnut, rosewood and marquetry centre table, 3ft 1in (95cm) wide, as William and Mary and later and an estimate of £2500-3500, it was competed to £43,000 plus 15 per cent premium at Sotheby’s South in Billingshurst on July 20.

US: CHRISTIE'S have decided to place British expertise at the helm in New York with the promotion of their London managing director, Edward Dolman, to managing director of Christie’s in America.

UK: “A piece of the plaid worn by Prince Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden and left by him at Sir James Mackintosh Moy Hall Chief of the Clan Chatten. Presented by Lady Mackintosh to Sir Thomas Grey.” – so read the handwritten statement which accompanied this tattered tartan fragment, 6in (15cm) square, to Phillips’ sale of textiles in Edinburgh on July 2.

UK: AT THE first sale in their new Norcote saleroom near Cirencester on July 9, Moore Allen & Innocent sold this distinctive walnut leather-seated early 18th century armchair for £21,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium).

UK: THIS rather battered French chair that the family dog used to curl up in had buyers leaping off their seats at Christie’s sale on June 23 when it more than doubled hopes, selling at £350,000.

UK: LIVING up to its billing as one of the sales of the century The Rothschild Collection netted a hammer total of £52 million at Christie’s in London last week, the highest ever realised for a single-owner collection in Europe.

UK: ALMOST all of the 22,000 heritage chattels exempted from tax since 1976 will not qualify again under the new Government rules when they come up for reassessment, Sotheby’s believe.

UK: THE ENORMOUS wheel screw on this simulated oven gives some clue as to the gruesome purpose of the plated contraption which turned up at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on June 23.

UK: June saw London re-affirm its position as one of the world’s two premier venues for selling top quality Impressionist and Modern art with record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

UK: DISCOVERED in an English collection, this French, gilt and carved fauteuil sold to a private buyer at Christie’s in London on June 23 for £350,000 (plus premium).

US: A DEFINITIVE piece of social history, designed at the peak of the ’60s, the Rudi Gernreich topless bathing suit was considered the ultimate symbol of permissiveness and provoked a rash of moral outrage.

UK: PICTURED here is one of the best examples of English cameo glass to go under the hammer for many years.

UK: ONE OF THE curious features of the English class system was the availability of similar sporting pastimes to all men by their birthright. Royalty played real tennis, for instance, while impecunious prisoners, it seems, made do with rackets.

UK: TONY BANKS MP and former ministers Kenneth Baker and Peter Brooke were among those registering their interests at a sale of political commemoratives held by Special Auction Services on June 13 at the Courtyard Hotel, Padworth.

THE race for auction supremacy on the Internet took yet another turn last week when Sotheby’s announced a long term alliance with the best known name in e-commerce, amazon.com.

PHILLIPS have announced the appointment of Mark O. Howald as managing director of Phillips-Selkirk in St Louis as of May 1, 1999.