Christie's

IT was amongst the shaded woodland of the Thames Valley that Windsor chairs are thought to have originated. The forerunners of their kind may have been merely a humble form of seating, but, as two lots in forthcoming English furniture sales show, it wasn’t long before the form began to branch out.

PROFESSOR Edward T. Hall (1924-2001) was a born collector, amassing over a million cigarette cards as a schoolboy at Eton College and later building a celebrated collection of clocks and scientific instruments that was sold at Christie’s King Street last July.

A VERITABLE feast awaits lovers of early bindings at Christie’s on July 7, when they present the first part of the Michel Wittock collection, a 118-lot sale of Renaissance bindings, but seen right is something rather special from their sale of June 2.

DR Kaspar J Stock’s interest in chess sets was kindled when he received a traditional red and white chess set as a wedding present in 1960. He spent the next 40 years building up his collection, first hunting around the flea markets and antique shops of Northern Europe and Italy then extending his catchment area further afield to St Petersburg, New York and the Far East.

CONTROVERSIAL artist Tracey Emin (b. 1963) might be outraged by public “sniggering” after the loss of her works in the Momart’s London warehouse fire, but the art world has lost much more than her infamous tent. To many, much more disconcerting is the loss of the large cache of major paintings by Patrick Heron, RA (1920-1999).

NO self-respecting specialist auction of marine paintings would be complete without at least one example from the brush of that most prolific and popular of late 19th century marine painters, Thomas Bush Hardy (1842-1897).

THE National Trust of Scotland are looking to the Scottish Executive to lead the effort to prevent the piecemeal sale of the contents of Dumfries House, home to one of Scotland’s most celebrated collections of 18th century furniture.

ONE of the Thirty-One Original Etchings of Views of Norfolk by John Crome, a portfolio collection issued in 1821 by Freemans of Norwich, that sold for £3200 to an American collector in a Christie’s South Kensington sale of April 29.

WITH the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar beckoning next year, and market-fresh, unrestored marine pictures in ever-dwindling supply, it was hardly surprising to see this exceptionally well-preserved Panorama of Portsmouth Harbour, right, by Thomas Elliott (fl. 1790-1800) inspire intense, multiple-estimate bidding at Christie’s South Kensington’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) May 26 Maritime Sale.

SCATTERED amongst the colourfully decorated but fairly routine European-taste 18th century famille verte and famille rose bowls, plates and tea services that comprised the bulk of Christie’s King Street’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) 214-lot European collection of Chinese Export ceramics on May 11 was a handful of more unusual entries for which buyers paid a premium.

CHRISTIE’S have announced that as well as appointing Old Master dealers Hall and Knight as international directors, they have also acquired the firm’s New York galleries.

LAST week’s High Court judgement on the dispute over the gilded urns sold by Christie’s to Taylor Lynne Thomson should not prompt any dramatic changes to traditional cataloguing practice.

SALES of antique and decorative carpets traditionally accompany London’s Islamic series and all three participating salerooms offered selections last month. Christie’s King Street had the biggest and most expensive sale: a 269-lot gathering on April 29 that netted £1.78m. It also recorded the highest selling rates, although at 68 per cent by volume and 81 by value, they were not quite as strong as for the works of art offering two days earlier.

A travel sale held by Christie’s South Kensington on April 29 was a mix of books, prints and pictures and seen here are two items from a section of that sale devoted to the Alpine regions.

FURTHER delays look likely before those promised redress following the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price fixing settlement receive compensation.

ALTHOUGH they were one of three auctioneers forced to withdraw pre-Columbian works of art from sale last year over questions of provenance, Christie’s will continue to offer early South American items for auction in Paris.

Illustrated right is part of a group of fragmentary Greek and Coptic papyri, dating from the 4th-9th century AD and comprising mainly Coptic accounts, lists of names, literary fragments and two Greek biblical extracts, together with three narrow linen bandages inscribed in ink in late hieratic with spells from the Book of the Dead, c.3rd-1st century BC – offered as a single lot in a Christie’s antiquities sale, of April 27.

JACOBEAN London was enthralled by the Overbury Murder case and the subsequent trial of the conspirators.

FOR many collectors, the finest quality 18th century Qing dynasty mark and period porcelain is the holy grail of Chinese ceramics, but connoisseurs have long revered the understated aesthetic and classic simplicity of the Song dynasty’s (960-1279AD) monochrome glazed ceramics.

ACQUIRED for £52,000 by the Australian businessman John Schaeffer at Christie’s, London in June 1996, this striking oil on canvas, right, A Dancing Athlete with an Olive Branch, by Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), comes under the hammer again on May 15.