Auctioneers

THERE were few signs of recession at an old-fashioned, all-inclusive sale at Mallams Oxford on June 27 (15% buyer's premium) where more than 80 per cent of the 540 lots got away.

The Hambleton Group, who have built the world’s largest toy auction house, Vectis, launch a new auction business on Teesside with a sale of Georgian silver on August 22.

BONHAMS, who have just announced their acquisition of US fine art auctioneers Butterfields from eBay, are to consolidate almost their entire programme of London sales at Knightsbridge and Bond Street.

AUSTRALIAN auctioneers Cromwell’s are proving they are no square-heads by drumming up an army of loyal customers with a club for regular buyers.

SOTHEBY’S chief executive Bill Ruprecht is bullish about the company’s second quarter performance, reporting a 25 per cent increase in net income on the same period last year.

TOP LOT in this comparatively modest sale of Continental books and manuscripts at Sothebys on June 11, at £52,000 to a European dealer, was an autograph manuscript of one of Goethe’s more celebrated poems, Sehnsucht, (Longing) dated to c.1802-03.

The Zurich firm Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC) are opening an office in London. Negotiations for a Crown lease on prestigious premises in Waterloo Place (SW1) are well under way although they have suffered a slight setback which I understand will be resolved in the very near future. An autumn opening is planned.

ITALY: A record price for a painting by Carlo Carrà was established in Italy back on May 21 in a sale of contemporary art held by Christie’s in Milan.

AT a convivial press lunch at Sotheby’s last week, scribes and dealers mingled to officially welcome the fifth Asian Art in London celebrations, scheduled for November 7 to 15.

This month has seen a crop of antique arms and armour offered in the London rooms with Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams all holding sales in July. Pictured here is the most expensive item of the summer series, a rare cased Colt belt revolver of c.1840, which made £200,000 at Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) sale in their Bond Street rooms on July 24.

WITH the furniture trade in a selective mood after a patchy round of June fairs, Bonhams relied upon local private buyers and international shippers to purchase the top pieces of furniture at their three-day Chester sale from 26-28 June.

“SOME types of Bow have revived in popularity and botanical subjects are very popular,” said specialist Deborah Clarke, after a set of four octagonal plates, two shown right, were consigned by a Scottish collector to Bonhams (17.5 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of ceramics and glass in Edinburgh on June 28.

The sale of pottery and porcelain from the Minton Museum Collection took place at Bonhams Bond Street on July 23. The 379 lots realised £714,025 net against an estimate of £400,000.

PHILLIPS, de Pury & Luxembourg have closed their French and Continental Furniture department with the departure of its head, Thierry Millerand.

A US federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of former Sotheby’s chairman A. Alfred Taubman who had been found guilty of conspiring with rival auctioneer Christie’s International to fix commission fees.

USA: A stage designer for the Ballets Russes, advertising artist, painter and book illustrator, Alexander Alexeieff, is probably best known for his animated cartoons, but in two posters that he designed for LNER he produced surreal images that were unlike anything previously seen on a train poster.

USA: Next week in an extraordinary single-lot auction – and the first joint sale between Sotheby’s.com and eBay, this 1933 Double Eagle $20 gold coin is to be offered for sale by Sotheby’s and New York coin auctioneer Stack’s on behalf of the US government.

USA: The works of two American impressionists, Fern Isabel Coppedge (1888-1951) and Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927), both of whom were plein air painters whose works were admired for their fresh and colourful imagery, are featured here, together with a sample of the folksier treatment of rural America by Paul Seifert, a German fruit and vegetable farmer who took to painting as a lucrative sideline.

USA: THREE pieces of Tiffany art glass and a Tiffany-type lamp from the Handel factory – sold by Doyles of New York on June 5 and by Skinners of Boston on June 22 – are featured here.

This rare 9in (23cm) diameter Venetian lattimo glass plate of c.1741, with iron red decoration of the Piazetta at Venice led Bonhams’ May 22 Continental ceramics sale when it was bid to £36,000.