Auctioneers

THE smaller items among the quality furniture, clock and collectable entries proved the most commercial lots at this 846-lot Herefordshire auction at Brightwells on 6 and 7 February.

THE move towards holding specialist sales among provincial auctioneers has been one of the success stories recent years and one that is paying dividends for Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis in one of the most arcane worlds – that of carpets and textiles.

FOLLOWING months of speculation, Sotheby’s have announced they are to sell Summer’s Place in Billingshurst, West Sussex – but want to continue their twice-yearly garden statuary sales there.

US auction house Dargate will be put up for auction on March 30 without reserve. The decision follows the failure of the first attempt on September 7 last year, when the starting bid for the fixed assets, ongoing business, goodwill, Website, mailing list and other holdings was set at $500,000.

Bonhams increased the buyer’s premium on their lower price tier for purchases this month. From March 1 a new rate applies of 17.5 per cent (plus VAT) on the first £30,000 and 10 per cent thereafter.

CHRISTIE’S led worldwide auction sales in 2001, with a total of £1.242bn compared to Sotheby’s £1.14bn for the same period.

Phillips-Selkirk, the St Louis, Missouri auction house owned by Phillips de Pury Luxembourg, has a new name and a new owner.

Though not so credited, this coloured lithograph, Grand Prix de l’A.C.F. 1913 (Motocyclettes) has a very Gamy/Montaut look about it. In the literature section of a motoring sale held by Bonhams at the RAF Museum, Hendon, on February 25, it sold at £250.

Christie’s (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) staged their first Automobile sale in Paris on February 12 at the Rétromobile vintage car show, which attracts 100,000 visitors every year.

“…a show, not a place to live,” was how Lord Gowrie summed up David Sylvester’s approach to decorating his homes in a tribute previewing Sotheby’s sale of the art critic and curator’s collection last month.

BETTER known for its polo club than its fine art, Cowdray Park in Midhurst, Sussex nevertheless provided Hampshire auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt with some talking points among a quantity of the “surplus to requirements” chattels the owners of the country pile had decided to get rid of.

NEW YORK: MARINE paintings are a specialist area which have received plenty of attention from auction houses eager to tap into the wealth of those rich enough to enjoy mucking around in boats.

Perfect conditions were required for the production of 18th century soft paste porcelain, but work only began on this rare group, right, after three ships laden with 44 factory staff and 88 tons of equipment had been ferried from Italy to Spain.

THE Taunton rooms of Greenslade Taylor Hunt (10 per cent buyer’s premium) were graced with the presence of a “minor media celebrity”, on St. Valentine’s day when this rare Steiff rod-jointed teddy bear, right, known as Percy, made an appearance.

SILVER: Good commercially appealing entries were what was finding favour with both trade and private buyers at Christie’s South Kensington’s second silver sale of the year, the 158-lot £136,123 gathering held on February 19.

THE auctioneers’ decision to place the first half of a sizeable consignment of furniture from a North Oxfordshire house in Mallams January sale paid dividends when the 87 lots provided half of the £130,000 total of the 277-lot sale.

It was standing room only at Sotheby’s Bond Street on February 26 when the auctioneers sold the David Sylvester collection. In a room packed with dealers, collectors and friends of the late art critic, plus a phalanx of Sotheby’s staff manning a bank of telephones, the auctioneers offered 149 lots of paintings, drawings, sculpture, tribal art and antiquities, and as lot after lot outstripped the estimates, it was clear that their £1m projection was going to be dramatically exceeded.

HOLLAND: IN honour of the Netherlands’ long tradition of landscapes and town scenes Christie’s Amsterdam (buyer’s premium 20.825 per cent) had a topographical theme to its pictures sale on January 22.

THE relative strength of Old Master paintings in comparison to other sectors of the market has been noted at a number of recent auctions, but this new-found strength, it seems, is not just restricted to top-end sales in London and New York.

Top seller at a brisk day’s bidding at the Cheltenham sale held by Mallams (15% premium) on January 31 was a pair of classical style gilt metal and lapis lazuli urns and covers, one shown right.