Europe

MAJOR players from the English and Continental clock trade travelled to Dublin on May 1 for the sale of this important and rare 19th century ormolu-cased French automaton clock, right, at O’Reilly’s (15% buyer’s premium).

After Modern art specialist Francis Briest and Claude Aguttes of suburban Neuilly, Hervé Poulain and Rémy Le Fur have become the latest auctioneers to join Artcurial.

Insurance giants AXA and Barclays Private Equity have withdrawn their offers to buy Drouot. In a statement issued on May 13, AXA said that their €82m offer, tabled on March 21, was to be “considered null and void, given the difficulty in obtaining the support of a majority of commissaires-priseurs”.

BONHAMS have unveiled a network of representatives across Europe whose job will be to bring in new business and ensure continuity of service for clients.

FOLLOWING the cancellation of Salon de Mars 2002 owing to a dispute with the venue over a clash with other fixtures, its organisers Association ARES have dissolved and Salon de Mars is no more.

RESPONDING to the rise and rise of interest in 20th century design Le Salon du XXeme Siecle will be launched in Paris from June 6 to 9 at Le Carrousel du Louvre.

Jewellery and silver enthusiasts were catered for in Ireland as well as Wiltshire during April as private buyers flocked to O’Reilly’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of gemstones and silver in Dublin on April 10.

Oriental art dealer Christian Deydier has been voted in as the new president of the France’s Syndicat National des Antiquaires (National Dealers’ Association) in Paris, defeating book dealer Claude Blaizot by 10 votes to 6. Outgoing president Dominique Chevalier, recently injured in a motorcycle accident, did not stand for re-election.

SWITZERLAND: A mammoth four-day mixed sale of just under 2700 lots was held in Zürich by Galerie Koller (18%/16%/12% buyer’s premium) from March 19–23. This comprised furniture, carpets, decorative arts, jewellery, clocks, fine art and books and the auctioneers felt that the results confirmed the stability of the market for material of the best quality.

A pair of ornamental blue and gold vases made by the Manufacture Impériale in St Petersburg (c.1825-30) soared to €520,000 (£335,000) at Beaussant-Lefèvre on April 10.

NAPOLEONIC MEMORABILIA (£1 = €1.62): A sale entitled L’Empire à Fontainebleau confirmed the evergreen appeal of Napoleonic memorabilia at Osenat, Fontainebleau (17.94/13.16% buyer’s premium) on March 10, where one of the last linen shirts worn by Napoleon on St Helena was offered for sale.

ITALY: Spring has been slow to bring a little sunshine to the auction world in Italy, with rather lacklustre sales for Finarte and Semenzato’s opening moves. It will remain to be seen whether the scandal that has enveloped Corbelli, majority shareholder of Semenzato and chairman of Finarte, will affect the performance of the auction houses (that are not accused of any wrongdoing) in the more important sales later in the season.

The elegant Château d’Enghien, 30 kilometres south west of Brussels, will once again play host to the Belgium ceramics fair next month, from May 1-5.

Dreesmann’s 132 lots of Dutch silver made a major input into Christie’s Amsterdam (20.825/11.9% buyer’s premium) session of his collection, accounting for five of the ten highest prices and completely selling out.

ONE of the most important oils by Irish artist Louis le Brocquy (b.1916) is to return to Ireland after spending nearly 50 years in Italy.

Keen to maximise international interest, Christie’s sold the major portion of Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann’s Old Master pictures in London on April 11.

March 18 saw a specialist 575-lot Spanish sale at Numismatica Ars Classica. The coins dated from Visigothic times (mid-7th century) to the 19th century. In the absence of more detailed literature, this catalogue will be useful for collectors and dealers alike.

FRANCE: FROM June 6 to 9 the inaugural Le Salon du XXeme Siecle (20th Century Design Show) will be launched at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris.

Paris in late March held various attractions for art lovers outside the saleroom. Europ’Art, a new contemporary art salon (March 14-17), attracted 200 artists from 18 countries (40 of them from ‘guest nation’ Israel). The International Paris Print Fair (March 22-25) assembled 30 exhibitors from France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK (Elizabeth Harvey-Lee, Flowers Graphics, Garton & Co, Sims Reed, and William Weston).

Is there a future for Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg (15/10% buyer’s premium) now that Bernard Arnault and the financial might of the LVMH group have distanced themselves from the company and the enormous guarantees it was paying to secure high-value consignments?