Sotheby's

A BIG cut in extraordinary costs for the third quarter of 2003 has boosted Sotheby’s latest results – as a result net losses have fallen by more than a third on the same period last year. The significant reductions in employee retention costs and antitrust-related special charges mean that losses for the quarter this year were down to $27.4m, compared to $43m for the third quarter of 2002.

Sotheby’s have appointed their current German chief, Philipp Wurttemberg, to succeed Laure de Beauvau Craon as head of Sotheby’s France. M. Wurttemberg will start in the job in January 2004, while continuing as managing director of Sotheby’s Germany, a post he has held since 1999.

WITH vendors finding greater confidence (and, in some cases, greater incentives) to offer blue chip works, both Christie’s and Sotheby’s mounted strong sales of Impressionist and Modern art in New York last week. Ahead of this week’s sales of Contemporary art, the two big players both improved substantially upon last year’s figures and posted artists records for Modigliani, Léger, Klimt, Jawlensky and Moore against a backdrop of solid levels of demand.

THE Chicago Clearing Corporation, the US traders in class action certificates, are to visit London again to buy and sell the vouchers issued following the Christie’s/Sotheby’s collusion case settlement.

The lacklustre results posted at Sotheby’s (20/10% buyer’s premium) summer garden statuary sale were not bettered in early autumn, the September 23 catalogue seeing only 365 of the 666 lots sold.

Included amongst the more venerable 18th century flutes, 19th century hurdy gurdies and 17th century harpsicords and spinets that make up the l03-lot sale of early musical instruments to be held at Sotheby’s Bond Street on November 25, is this unusual piece of more recent vintage.

An early autumn mixed hors d’oeuvres of silver and European ceramics went under the hammer at Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) on October 2. Roughly two-thirds of the 375 lots were devoted to silver and vertu, and the remaining third to ceramics, but it was the latter that provided half of the ten highest prices, including what proved to be very much the top lot of the day.

A NEW company aiming to capture a market that even the top firms have failed to corner – selling high end art and antiques online – are trying a fresh approach. iGavel are headed by Vancouver-based Lark E. Mason, Jr, a 24-year veteran employee of Sotheby’s whose last role was director of online auctions for sothebys.com.

September was football time for two of the London rooms, Sotheby’s Olympia (20/10% buyer’s premium) fielded a 437-lot sale on September 11 and Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), who followed on two weeks later with their 302-lot offering on September 23.

Greater levels of trade and private interest in what were fairly routine silver outings at Christie’s South Kensington and Bonhams Knightsbridge on September 9 gave specialists at both houses cause for optimism.

Sotheby’s will sell the contents of Fawley House, Fawley, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on October 14-15. Their vendor, David McAlpine of the construction dynasty, has collected for 30 years.

Modern British’s reputation as the market of the moment was underlined at Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) on September 10 when the trade had their last major opportunity to buy stock before the 20/21 British Art Fair.

Fashionably-clad women queuing to try on the new season’s must-haves is a common enough sight in any high street clothes shop, but in the late 18th century men gave as much thought to their appearance as the fairer sex.

Laure de Beauvau-Craon has announced that she will step down as chief executive of Sotheby’s France at the end of the year. She has held the post since 1991 and will be remembered for successfully lobbying the European Commission to bring about the abolition of the domestic auction monopoly of France’s commissaires-priseurs.

Representatives of a US company trading in class action certificates are coming to London to meet UK recipients of vouchers relating to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing settlement in the USA.

The Stuart Sutcliffe archive received a lukewarm reception at Bonhams Knightsbridge, but Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) are hoping a stamp design by his famous art college friend, John Lennon, will generate more frenzied bidding in their 201-lot Rock ’n’ Roll and Film Memorabilia sale on September 24.

THE company appointed to administer the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price fixing settlement in Europe have apologised for the error on the compensation claim forms which has delayed the process. The Garden City Group, who sent out the forms last month, transcribed the compensation amounts in dollars rather than pounds sterling. The amounts were listed in the section of the form titled Pre-Printed Transactions Supplied by Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

Sotheby’s have acquired the inventory and reference library of H.P. Kraus, the venerable New York dealers in books and manuscripts, which they will sell in a series of auctions this autumn.

A BASIC clerical error seems certain to delay compensation payments linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price fixing settlement, it has emerged. At least in some cases, the figures quoted in forms sent out notifying claimants of their entitlements have been transcribed in dollars rather than in sterling.

Last summer Sotheby’s took a bid of £36,000 on a copy of the 1937 first edition of The Hobbit inscribed in October of that year to Tolkien’s Aunt Jane; this summer they raised £40,000 for a copy that he had inscribed at the time of publication.