International

OCTOBER is the busiest month in New York for London-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton who, as Haughton Fairs, brought quality, vetted fairs to Manhattan in 1989 with the launch of their International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show at The Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue.

AN escaped slave who became a prominent social reformer, journalist and public official, Frederick Douglass (1817-95) published a first account of his life in 1845, but revised and extended versions followed in 1855 and, finally in 1881 as The Life and Times...

NEW YORK’s pioneer organisers Wendy Management have been putting antiques fairs together for 70 years but they are not resting on their laurels.

This rare silk and bullion embroidered doll’s or child’s dress from the first half of the 18th century will be offered at auction on September 27.

THERE were two copies of Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesties Fleet in a Sotheby’s New York sale of June 17.

WITH the frontispiece and all but the last of the 34 double-page or folding engraved plates and plans in full contemporary colour, Isaac Commelin’s Histoire de la Vie & Actes memorables de Frederic Henry de Nassau, Prince d’Orange of 1656 sold for $32,000 (£17,580) in a Christie’s New York sale of June 9.

THE ebullient Samuel Boscher (16.74% buyer’s premium) was in typically sonorous form for his annual two-day summer jamboree in Cherbourg on August 8/9.

MANHATTAN Asian art dealers William Lipton hold a selling exhibition of Chinese furniture, what they term “literati objects” and other Asian works of art at 41 East 57th Street until October 7.

SOLD for $1.4m (£760,870) at Sotheby’s New York on June 18 was a working draft, or heavily annotated multilith copy of the text that was to become known after the organisation established by its compilers as Alcoholics Anonymous.

LEADING New York antiquities dealers Royal-Athena Galleries hold two concurrent selling exhibitions from October 1 to 30 at their galleries at 153 East 57th Street.

CHELSEA-based Paul Andrews has been a full-time dealer since 1965 and for the past 14 years has sold a wide range of antiques from 4000 square feet in the Furniture Cave in King’s Road, London SW10.

CARAYOL'S (19.73/16.14% buyer’s premium) annual two-day sale at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz was staged this year in collaboration with Paris firm Boisgirard & Associés. With muted success; only a quarter of the 800 lots found takers for a hammer total of around €400,000 (£265,000).

SWITZERLAND hosts a new international fair later this year with the launch of The Basel Ancient Art Fair from November 12 to 17 at the historic Wenkenhof, just outside the city of Basel.

THERE are few things so distinctly American in the book auction world as the collections of ‘Oziana’ that arrive in the salerooms with remarkable regularity.

GEORGE Jensen silver specialists The Silver Fund, who have shops in St. James’s, London and Madison Avenue, New York, have opened an outlet at Gump’s, San Francisco’s leading department store.

OVERLAPPING with the start of the Biennale (September 15-19) will be the third annual Parcours des Mondes, a Left Bank gallery trail featuring 50 tribal art dealers.

ILLUSTRATED right is the opening page of a 1468 paper manuscript copy (in period-style panelled calf with period clasps) of Jacob de Voragine’s 13th century history of the lives of the saints, Legenda Aurea – otherwise decorated with rubricated initials throughout – that with some staining to the opening leaves sold at $18,000 (£9780) in a Bonhams & Butterfields of San Francisco sale of June 28.

JUST a taster for one of the greatest antiques shows on earth, the XX11 Paris Biennale Des Antiquaires, which will run at the Carrousel du Louvre in the heart of the French capital from September 15 to 28, with the vernissage on September 14.

CAPE Cod auctioneers Eldred’s of East Dennis had a busy August schedule and results from their series of Asian and Americana sales will appear in future US Selections, but seen here are two of the 970 lots found in an August 12-13 sale of Fine & Decorative Art.

A POSTER sale held by Swanns of New York on August 4 was strong on recruitment and propaganda posters of WWI and WWII. A condition-A copy of “the best known American poster of all time”, the famous Uncle Sam image of 1917 seen top right, was sold at $9000 (£4950). Based on the well-known British poster featuring Lord Kitchener, it was originally produced by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg as a magazine cover and is in fact a self-portrait of the artist.