International

FAIRS are among the most contentious, gossip-ridden and difficult-to-read aspects of the whole antiques business. But while organisers’ rivalry can often verge on the psychotic, there is one thing they all agree about, and that is the status of The European Fine Art Fair at Maastricht.

FRANCE: Auction turnover in France, for sales by commissaires-priseurs, rose 4.4 per cent in 2001 to €1.9bn (£1.17bn). There were significant regional increases in Lyon & the South-East (up 14 per cent to £180m, with Lyon itself contributing over one-third of that figure) and Brittany-Anjou (up 17 per cent to £102m), whereas Normandy suffered a dip of 19 per cent with sales of £86m.

PARIS: Ten works by Philippe Hiquily (born 1925) surfaced in the Camard sale at Drouot on February 8, comfortably exceeding predictions to post “record prices” and enjoy what Camard called “tremendous success among French and foreign collectors and decorators.”

PARIS: The whole history of French coins from Gaulish times to the present was covered by the Jean Vinchon (10.764% buyer’s premium) sale in Paris on November 6. Because it was a single collection rather than the random assemblage that chance had brought across the counter there were many choice examples on offer.

USA: Wedgwood wares formed a significant slice of Skinner’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 890-lot auction of English and Continental furniture and decorations on January 19. Of the 230-odd lots of ceramics that featured in the sale, two-thirds comprised works from that factory.

A large desert Caravane by Victor Huguet (c.1895), 4ft 4in x 6ft 8in (1.31 x 2.02m) and inspired by Fromentin, led the Delorme-Fraysse picture sale on February 12 with €82,000 (£51,200).

In the second major Internet shill bidding case, three people have been charged with running a scheme that boosted the sale prices of hundreds of pieces of Lalique glass auctioned on eBay.

British Art Market Federation lobbying has persuaded the Department of Trade and Industry to provide grants for 13 LAPADA members to exhibit at a Chicago antiques fair.

The conviction of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz on charges of conspiracy and trading in stolen and smuggled artefacts has sent shockwaves through the trade.

USA: The annual general sale of good quality classical coins (446 lots) hosted by the triumvirate of Baldwins (London), Markov (New York) and M&M (Washington DC) took place in the Big Apple on January 17.

FRANCE: TOBACCOLOGY may not be the word on everybody’s lips in these smoke-free days but it was the official theme of the offbeat sale held by Rieunier-Bailly-Pommery at Drouot on January 28.

FRANCE: Camard reported “strong progress” in demand among trade and private buyers for 20th century ceramics last year. They returned to the field this year when they offered a “panorama of 100 years of history of ceramics” at Drouot on January 25.

FRANCE: Pictured right is a restored 18th century two-part fountain basin, with a veined red marble shell topped by a white stone lion head, which sold over expectations for €25,000 (£15,500) at Tajan on January 30

Pierre Bergé, president of Yves St-Laurent Haute Couture, has withdrawn from the race to acquire control of Drouot Holding SA. The company, which is owned by Paris’s 110 commissaires-priseurs, controls the Hôtel Drouot and the lucrative auction weekly, the Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot.

FLORIDA-based organiser David Lester launches his first New York fair next autumn with a broad-based event at the Jacob Javits Center from September 10 to 15.

USA: A NEW auction house specialising in what it dubs ‘Landmark’ sales of arms and armour has risen in San Francisco from the ashes of the former top management team of Butterfield’s.

France has taken the first step towards adopting Unidroit, which enforces strict controls on the restitution of stolen art. On January 29 a first reading of the bill ratifying the convention was adopted by the Assemblée Nationale (lower-house).

Last summer Christie’s Old Master drawings expert Nicolas Schwed was sitting at his desk in Paris checking through his e-mails when he came across this 460-year-old face staring back at him from his computer screen.

FINLAND: While they would not look out of place in the William Morris Museum or in Hill House Helensburgh, two silvered brass candlesticks in this sale had never left Finland. They came up for auction at Helsinki auction house, Hagelstam (12% buyer’s premium) on December 1 last year, where they had been catalogued with an estimate of FiM50,000/€8410 (the fale was conducted in Finnish Markk.

FRANCE: FRANCIS FRITH (1822-98) was the focus of attention of Beaussant-Lefèvre’s sale of 19th century photographs at Drouot on January 25, as expert Pierre-Marc Richard claimed a world record auction price of €23,000 (£14,400), almost double-estimate, for a Francis Frith photograph: an 1858 view of The Pyramids of El-Geezeh from the south-west (pictured).