News topics

Following his decision to move to France, the silver reference library of long-time London dealer Brand Inglis will be sold by auction in Salisbury at the end of this month. As part of their silver sale on January 28, Woolley & Wallis will offer an enviable working library that has served Mr Inglis for over 40 years.

Clock dealers spot under-catalogued rarities as regulators continue to set the pace in an otherwise stagnant market: ONE of the few elements of the clock trade to see significant forward strides in recent years is the regulator – the name given to those technically interesting and accurate timekeepers used to set the time of the watches and domestic clocks of Regency and Victorian Britain.

Sotheby’s, who have continued the tradition of separate works of art sales rather than combining them with Continental furniture, were actually able to serve up a double helping in December. Their usual mixed-owner offering on the 12th was preceded by a separately catalogued single-owner sale, called Treasures from the Rothschild Collection, of cameos and other antique jewels, gold boxes, silver-gilt, Limoges enamels and other objects made of precious materials.

The Continental Furniture sale at Sotheby’s Bond Street on December 10 proved something of a struggle, just like the furniture elements offered the following day by their King Street competitors. Only half the 241 lots got away, with demand focussed more than ever on the rarest top quality.

UK: BONHAMS are advertising for a new managing director for their Knightsbridge rooms following the announcement that James Knight is now to head their Bond Street operation. The vacancy has been created as part of a wider reshuffle to allow group managing director Malcolm Barber to concentrate on building business in the United States.

Despite the unpredictable trading conditions of the last 12 months, Tennants posted record trading figures for 2003. Aided by a bumper £1.62m autumn catalogue sale, total sales at The Auction Centre, Leyburn from January to December 2003 were £8.44m (not including premium), a substantial improvement upon the previous year when the North Yorkshire operation posted hammer sales of £7.4m.

ENGLISH POTTERY AND LATER ENGLISH CERAMICS: The mixed-owner, all-English sale held by Bonhams Bond Street on December 10 covered a much broader canvas than the Billie Pain collection. It ranged from early delftwares to 20th century Royal Worcester, with examples of most other ceramic categories in between.

There was an upbeat country house feel at Mallams’ salerooms with almost half the sale comprising the local Grove House estate of the late Mrs Graham Greene, the 98-year-old widow of the writer (Greene was, as he said, “a bad husband and a fickle lover” but although he and his wife separated in 1948 they never divorced).

Combining exotic subject matter with rarity value, figures of the Victorian lion-tamer Isaac Van Amburgh are among the most desirable of all Staffordshire portrait figures.

Over recent years the market for classic railway engine nameplates has shown itself to be as solid and reliable as the great engines they once adorned. It is 40 years since the Beeching Report condemned a third of the British rail network to the axe and effectively ended the glorious age of steam, but even then there were enthusiasts who cared enough to preserve what they could.

This Women’s Social and Political Union medal for valour was awarded to Mary Richardson, the Canadian-born militant suffragette who, in protest at the re-arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst in March 1914, slashed the ‘Rokeby’ Venus with an axe at the National Gallery.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the arrival of Enlightenment philosophy in Puritan Scotland was the creation of clubs and societies that encouraged exuberant and outrageous behaviour in their members. The best known is the Beggar’s Benison.

THE CORA GINSBURG COLLECTION: Pioneering New York dealer and collector Cora Ginsburg (who died last December aged 92) was passionate about the needlework, costumes and textiles she dealt in.

THE inscription Wilkes And Liberty No. 45 on this 9in (23cm) diameter Lambeth delftware portrait plate is as good as a date as it refers to the publication of the 45th issue of John Wilkes’ sharp-tongued periodical The North Briton.

Despite a year that saw substantial declines in brown furniture prices and a tailing off in the demand for general silver, most of the UK’s top provincial auctioneers held steady in a difficult market.

HOPES of establishing a national database of stolen art have taken a significant step forward. MPs on the parliamentary committee who recommended the database be set up three years ago gave the project a new boost after publicly criticising the Government for failing to act despite promises to do so.

Ebay are warning their users to be vigilant after users of PayPal fell victim to a hi-tech scam in November and December. Many received a replicating virus that, camouflaged as an email from the online payment provider, tried to trick the recipient into sending sensitive information.

FRANCE’S new auction watchdog has flexed its muscles for the first time, banning two paintings – one attributed to Van Gogh, the other to Toulouse-Lautrec – from sale on suspicion of being fakes.

Prior to the sale of two record-breaking lots of Beswick at Bonhams’ October 28 sale – a colour trial Galloway Bull (£8800) and the Spirit of Whitfield (£9500) – the auction record for Beswick could well have been the £3500 paid for this rare figure at Potteries Specialist Auctions on October 22.

IN common with a number of recent Irish house sales, Christie’s/Hamilton Osborne King’s (19.5% buyer’s premium) November 25 on-the-premises sale of the contents of Lissadell House, Ballinfull, County Sligo, had more than a touch of controversy.