Christie's

LONDON'S twice-yearly series of Islamic sales can usually be relied upon to produce some dramatic results as the deep-pocketed collectors that dominate this market battle to secure their chosen prizes. The latest Islamic series, featuring sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams, was no exception, with some huge prices generated at all three houses for tiles, Isnik pottery, daggers and jewelled objects.

MARKETING, advertising and promotion may be a multi-billion pound business globally today, but in the early years of the 20th century it was an industry in its infancy.

Christie’s South Kensington (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) hold three Scientific Instruments sale a year but reserve the spring sale for a restricted number of high-quality objects. Tom Newth, head of the department, reports the market picking up in the last six months, with strong competition for microscopes and Islamic astronomical instruments.

THE international Asian art community descended upon New York in March to secure the most enticing exhibits in Manhattan’s two major Asian art fairs and numerous dealers’ shows. They were also there to contest the best quality Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Southeast Asian fare in Sotheby’s and Christie’s five specialist auctions that took place between March 23 and 25.

A HIGH Court judge has retired to consider his ruling in a case that could revolutionise the terms under which auctioneers do business.

From the standpoint of manufacturing history, dispersals of any factory collection are always tinged with sadness.

The hangar saleroom at Christie’s South Kensington was full to overflowing for the much-publicised sale of the Poole Pottery Museum collection and archive on March 31.

CHRISTIE'S have announced worldwide sales totalling £1.2bn ($2bn) for 2003. This includes auction sales of £1.1bn ($1.8bn) and private sales of £90m ($150m).

IT could have come straight out of one of the author’s own stories – a lost archive of unique material valued at two million pounds uncovered in the offices of a London law firm after being missing for decades.

THE large number of increasingly wealthy mainland Chinese dealers and collectors participating in UK auctions are pushing up the prices in certain sectors of the market, including 19th century Chinese-taste ceramics. In the past this area has largely been overlooked in favour of imperial porcelain from earlier periods, but with the best 18th century mark and period routinely commanding six-figure sums, 19th century ceramics must look good value for money.

THE SPIRO collection, sold by Christie’s on December 3 included a few letters and documents of Spanish monarchs and a proclamation of July 1501, signed by both Ferdinand V and Isabella, that banned all unconverted Moors from Granada – the last step prior to the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain – was sold for £42,000.

WHEN Poole Pottery went into administration last June, it could have been a sad day for one of Britain’s best-known producers of table, giftwares and art pottery. But the Dorset pottery has risen phoenix-like under new ownership and is once again producing ceramics as well as launching four new giftware ranges.

INITIAL arguments in the £1.75m High Court dispute between Christie’s and Taylor Lynne Thomson over a pair of porphyry urns indicate that both parties intend to fight their corner vigorously.

Signed and inscribed by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this short poem called ‘Fancy in the Clouds: a Marine Sonnet’ was written on a piece of seaweed and sent to Charles Lamb.

“Probably the best sale of this type in a very long time. Very strong across the board,” enthused specialist Roy Bolton after his February 27 auction of Old Master Pictures at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyers premium).

Furniture activity in London has been fairly low-key so far this year, but two mid-February furniture sales not only looked a step above the rest but were also fairly similar in their scope. Christie’s South Kensington’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 502-lot sale on February 11 was one of their five annual sales of more select, varied and decorative content.

Christie’s are to hold their first auction in Spain since 1999 this autumn when they offer a sale devoted to Spanish paintings in Madrid on October 6. Although they have maintained an office in Madrid, Christie’s last Spanish auction was five years ago when they held the Bendinat House sale in Mallorca.

IF asked to nominate the subject of a commercial painting by Montague Dawson (1895-1973), most specialists and collectors would think of a clipper ship, preferably an American clipper in full sail on picturesquely choppy, but not too choppy, seas.

London’s Asian auction scene will not get into full swing until next month when the capital’s main rooms field sales of mixed Asian or Export wares before the action moves across the Atlantic for the New York fairs and sales.

SILVER SALES: Although different in size, the 451-lot silver sale at Bonhams’ Knightsbridge (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) sale on February 10 and the 263 lots offered at Christie’s South Kensington (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) on February 17 were both fairly routine affairs by London standards.