France

FRANCE: Knitting was a great leveller in the 18th century, it seems. An ivory pair of knitting needles, said to have once belonged to Marie-Antoinette, sold for €26,000 at Piasa (17.94% buyer’s premium) sale or royal memorabilia in Paris on May 21.

THE Decorative Arts sale on May 19 at Tajan (14.35/20.33% buyer’s premium) was devoted almost exclusively to Art Deco and saw 165 of its 288 lots (57 per cent) find takers en route to a total of €3.18m (£2.2m) including premium. Unlike the sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the catalogue was in French only with no English translations.

THE NAME of Jean-Baptiste de Machault d’Arnouville (1701-94), Finance and Navy Minister under Louis XV, provided lustrous provenance to the top lots at the sale of art and furniture held by Beaussant-Lefèvre (14.35-17.94% buyer’s premium) at Drouot on April 25.

Illustrated right is one of 15 chromolitho plates after pastel originals by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot that make up a scarce, complete set of The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, the work of a keen observer and talented artist who spent the years 1872-74 using the 15in refractor at Harvard Observatory.

PARIS expert Alain Weil must be a busy man as he was also the expert for Pierre Bergé & Associés general sale on April 3 that included a 76-lot section devoted to médailles artistique, to use the French expression.

Christian Deydier was re-elected President of France's Syndicat National des Antiquaires in Paris on April 30. The feistily flamboyant Deydier has vowed to “continue to adopt a dynamic and innovative approach” towards “developing the profession and defending its interests”, notably with regard to Unidroit and import VAT.

FRENCH auctioneers are trying to build links with the British Art Market Federation to campaign against damaging European Union regulations which are driving business across the Atlantic to the USA.

A veritable feast of textiles from an older era will be up for grabs in a big way next month in Paris when French auctioneer Olivier Coutau-Begarie holds a mammoth two-day dispersal at Richelieu-Drouot on April 29 and 30 of over 5000 pieces of antique silks, tapestries and embroideries from the House of Hamot, a French textile retailer and manufacturer of carpets and tapestries.

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).

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.

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.

A full-length Plains Cree Indian male costume from Saskatchewan River in Canada, consisting of a moose-hide shirt, pair of bottom tab leggings, and pair of soft-soled moccasins, sold for €130,000 (£83,300) at Millon & Associés (17.5/13.5% buyer’s premium) on December 2.

CHRISTIE’S have unveiled some major changes for their 20th century decorative arts policy in Europe. The auction house have closed their King Street department and are concentrating all their London activities in decorative arts at South Kensington. They also want to develop and raise the profile of this field in France with regular dedicated auctions in Paris under specialist Sonja Ganne.

LAUNCHED next September, a new biennial fair organised by France’s national dealers’ association, the Syndicat National des Antiquaires, will be called Le Salon du Collectionneur – Paris.

One of the 2003 saleroom highlights in Paris promises to be the auction of the Collection of André Breton (1896-1966). The 5000-lot collection, consigned by Breton’s daughter and granddaughter, is expected to bring around £20m and will be sold in 24 sessions under the Calmels-Cohen hammer at Drouot from April 1-18.

Tajan, who have made cartoons and comic strips into a saleroom speciality, claimed a saleroom first on November 30: a pioneering opportunity for fans of Lucky Luke, the self-styled “poor lonesome cowboy”, to buy an original plate by his artist Morris.

Christie’s and Sotheby’s failed to establish saleroom predominance in Paris in 2002, the first full year in which, thanks to France’s recent auction reform, they have been allowed to stage auctions on French soil.

François Curiel, head of Christie’s France, has set a precedent by winning permission to direct sales in France. It is the first time that the Conseil des Ventes, France’s auction watchdog, has authorised anyone who has not passed the traditional commissaire-priseur’s exams to hold the gavel.

This tiled panel advertising Champagne Mercier was one of a rare ensemble of six panels made in the early 1920s, each 5ft 9in x 2ft (174 x 62cm), on offer under the Prunier hammer in Louviers (14.95% buyer’s premium) on November 17. The other tiled panels, accompanied by two landscape friezes, also advertised drinks (Rhum Negrita, St Raphaël, Guillot Triple Sec, Quenot Dijon cassis, Fine Legrand cognac), and were marked G.F.C. France for Gilardoni Fils & Compagnie of Choisy-le-Roi, near Paris.

A new French nationwide auction grouping, Ivoire, was officially launched in Paris on November 21. The group includes auctioneers from three major cities (Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse) and nine other provincial towns (Aix-en-Provence, Avignon, Cannes, Chartres, Clermont-Ferrand, La Rochelle, Rheims, Saumur and Troyes).