International

PICTURES of dogs are big business as Bonhams’ & Doyle’s sale of Dogs in Art in New York on February 11 highlighted. And an artist frequently featured in these New York sales brought James Adam (15% buyer’s premium) of Dublin success on March 12.

With armed troops patrolling the refugee camps and townships in the occupied territories of Palestine, the message to the governing forces from the freedom fighters was defiant: “It is not our intention to convince anyone of the justice of our cause, for we don’t expect any goodwill from those who have deprived us of our country... you have learned what the word ‘terrorist’ means, some of you may even have come into direct contact with them.

April 12 marks the 42nd anniversary of man’s first space flight by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and Swann Galleries of New York have chosen that date to launch their first space exploration sale.

CONSIDERING the pervading gloom and doom, exhibitors at the private view of TEFAF Maastricht last Thursday night were surprisingly optimistic and the overall mood at the packed party was distinctly upbeat.

MORE than 250 dealers from across the US, Canada and Europe will stand at the 27th Annual Chicago O’Hare Spring Antiques Show at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois from April 25 to 27.

Unseen hoards of silver like this don’t appear on the market very often, so it is little wonder that the UK trade were out in force when it came under the hammer at Christie’s Amsterdam’s (23.2% buyer’s premium) Dutch and foreign silver sale on March 4. The wealth of silver came to light when part of a cellar wall collapsed during the demolition of a house on Breitenstrasse in Bad-Hersfeld, Germany in February 1967.

Specialist sales of Irish material are so few and far between that they are worth enumerating. The celebrated Lockett collec-tion was sold at Glendinings in 1956 and Whytes of Dublin held a landmark sale in April 2000.

LAST month, 14 notebooks containing the gruesome diaries of Anatole Deibler, France’s last public executioner, were sold in Paris at Beaussant-Lefèvre (17.94% buyer’s premium) for €85,000 (£55,600).

WEST Palm Beach, Florida has become quite an international cultural destination in the past few years, largely due to the energy of local fair organisers International Fine Art Expositions, who have successfully staged the Palm Beach International Art and Antique Fair and ArtPalmBeach, an acclaimed Modern and Contemporary show.

Direct competitors to Bonhams Honiton, in an area of the South West that is hardly brimming with quality goods, auctioneer Richard Connor and his team nevertheless put together a respectable offering of brown furniture and paintings at the Honiton Galleries, where the one item of rarity among the silver was this Irish dish ring of above average quality by Edmond Johnson, Dublin 1863, measuring 8in (20cm) diameter, which attracted an above-estimate bid of £2200.

THE majolica market has long been underpinned by American collectors and on April 4-5 Indiana-based Michael Strawser will be selling British, American and Continental pieces at the Alderfer Auction Center in Hatfield Pennsylvania.

TOP London specialist in English pottery Jonathan Horne exhibits at major fairs in London and New York and consistently comes up with top-of-the range stock, which he generally sells very well indeed.

Baldwin, Markov and M&M Numismatics is a bit of a mouthful, but this troika held their sale also in New York on January 16. It consisted mostly of classical coins. The antics of the Roman Circus would have given modern hunt protesters something to think about.

APART from sporadic themed sales held by provincial auctioneers, Camard’s main rival on the French poster auction scene is the Paris-based dealer Frédéric Lozada, who has instituted regular 1000-lot sales in Versailles (the one in late October brought over £250,000) and, most recently, in Lille, where he offered 1120 lots under the Wattebled hammer on December 11-12.

US: What was the impact of the sluggish economy and the downward DOW coupled with 150,000 troops in the Gulf on the New York Ceramics Fair? Well, barely a dent in enthusiasm or sales, much less a blemish on attendance in the event organised by the California-based Caskey-Lees enterprise.

NEW YORK specialist dealers in movie posters Posteritati hold some beguiling selling shows, but they look like being onto an international winner with their current one – French Gangsters & The New Wave – which runs at their gallery at 239 Centre Street until March 4.

NEW YORK: THE North American linkage between gardens and antiques – one some English dealers have benefited from – reaches new heights from February 20 to 23 when New York-based Stella Show Management mount a fair dedicated to outdoor collectables.

BELGIUM: LIEGE was an important silver centre in the 18th century under its wealthy prince bishops, so it is no surprise that these days the city hosts some of Belgium’s leading silver sales.

Lorenzo R. Rudolf has been appointed vice president of International Fine Art Expositions, the David Lester-run fair organising business now owned by dmg world media. Mr Rudolf was the driving force behind ArtBasel for over 10 years before leaving in 1999 to become the director for the Frankfurt Book Fair. He also conceived and set in motion the plans for ArtBasel Miami Beach, launched in December.

Luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault finally abandoned his attempt to compete with Christie’s and Sotheby’s at the top end of the art market last week when he sold his remaining 27.5 per cent stake in troubled auction house Phillips to its joint chief executives Simon de Pury and Daniella Luxembourg.