Auctions

THE New Barnham Auction rooms have just held their first fine art and antiques sale – only five weeks after taking over the premises.

A new auction high for the Neapolitan Impressionist Vincenzo Irolli (1860-1949) was established by Sotheby’s (20-15.42% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) last month in Milan when they offered this oil on canvas entitled La Pesca Fortunata (A good haul) in their sale of 19th century pictures on December 13.

SOME areas of the art market seem impervious to the changing winds of taste. One is quality pictures of great European cities by recognised artists which appeal across the usual boundaries of generations and national borders.

The last day of November saw a 633-lot sale at Spink (15% buyer’s premium). In all, this was a very successful sale; the failure rate being a negligible three per cent. The total was £415,486.

A massive gulf exists between the very best quality Meiji period (1868-1912) works and the rest.

The 1150 lots offered at Essex auctioneers Ambrose (15% buyer’s premium) at Loughton on December 9 encompassed most areas of the market and, outside the jewellery, generally sold for three-figure sums.

IN late autumn there were three major sales of Orders, Decorations and Medals. Their combined total was £1,373,461 with 2592 lots offered. This compares with a total for 2004 of just over £6m and 6219 lots offered by the London auction houses. (The 2004 annual tabulation for numismatic sales will appear in a future ATG.)

The rise and rise of Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981) out of the shadow of her husband, Ben, can be compared to that of Gwen John, now recognised as at very least equal to the artistic talent of her brother Augustus.

ERICH Maria Remarque’s corrected galley proofs for the 1929, first bookform edition of Im Westen nichts Neues [All Quiet on the Western Front] brought a collector’s bid of £26,000 at Sotheby’s on November 30.

Formed by screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin during research for a trilogy of plays, The Lost Boys (first broadcast in 1978) and for his biography of J.M. Barrie, a 19-lot collection that tells the story of his friendship with the Llewelyn-Davies boys and the emergence of one of the best known characters in all of children’s literature, Peter Pan, attracted a great deal of media publicity before being put up for sale at Sotheby’s on December 16.

Top Right: it may be badly damaged but this 4 1/2in (10.5cm) high Lowestoft blue and white teapot and cover is an exceptionally rare and documentary piece.

For the first time in its 19-year history, Atlantique City – New Jersey’s massive indoor antiques and collectables show – is going to allow shoppers through the Atlantic City Convention Center doors on a Friday.

Wallis & Wallis, Lewes. November 23. Buyer’s premium: 15 per centSales of arms and militaria can, with their beautifully chased old flintlocks and exuberantly decorated uniforms, somehow skate over the fact that often what is on offer is, or was, associated with the darker side of humanity.

BIDDERS at this week’s sale of the Rowler Collection of Georg Jensen silver at Christie’s Rockefeller Center, New York, might be interested to learn that, according to Michael James, founder and director of Jensen specialists The Silver Fund, virtually the entire collection of some 800 pieces was acquired for Rowler by The Silver Fund over the past six years.

A COPY of the most important document in the history of the Irish nation, the Proclamation of Independence printed at Liberty Hall, on Easter Sunday, 1916, realised £140,000 at Sotheby’s on December 16.

THE 660-lot Passion for Fashion auction held on December 15-16 was the second sale mounted by Kerry Taylor Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) under the new arrangement where her sales are managed independently and held in association with Sotheby’s on their premises rather than as a department within the company.

The main talking point of Gorringes’ (15% buyer’s premium) December 7-8 sale in Bexhill-on-Sea was the remarkable £260,000 bid on the second day for the early 17th century pietra dura table top featured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette no. 1670 (25th December/1st January).

Nadar (1820-1910), real name Félix Tournachon, is best known as one of the leading specialists in early photographic portraits.

The main head-turner at the Hove sale held by Scarborough Perry Fine Arts (15% buyer’s premium) on December 2-3 was this striking 19th century Italian, gold-mounted tortoiseshell snuffbox with a finely executed micromosaic lid, right.

An unusual picture, both in terms of its style and quality, was the star of the show at this year’s Fine Paintings sale held by the Scottish auctioneers John Swan (10% buyer’s premium) at Dryburgh Abbey Hotel near St Boswells on December 2.