Auctions

PERHAPS the rarest of all Beswick’s ouput is the Spirit of Whitfield.

AMONG the great grails of Maling collecting are the so-called Urbino style vases: 16in (41cm) high exhibition pieces c.1945 decorated in relief with a celebrated moment from classical mythology by Lucien Boullemeir to a design by Norman Carling. The scene shows Perseus holding aloft the Medusa’s head to petrify the sea monster and save the beautiful Andromeda, who is chained to the rocky shore.

THE reputation established by Gardiner Houlgate over the last ten years for Clarice Cliff pottery has resulted in two specialist sales each year of around 200 lots.

Christie’s South Kensington (20/12% buyer’s premium) : Art Nouveau and Art DecoThis two-day, all-Continental offering really was a sale of two halves.

Decorative Arts may be a volatile market but it follows a patternDECORATIVE ARTS by Anne Crane

Art of Dealing suggests way ahead for the art and antiques industry, and how to pay for it

Sotheby’s sale of a sizeable slice of the contents Easton Neston, the English Baroque country house that has been home of the Fermor-Hesketh family since it was built in 1699, raised a premium-inclusive £8.7m last week when the auctioneers offered 1472 lots over two days in a marquee on the grounds from May 17-19.

Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull have secured one of Scotland’s key art collections for sale in January 2006.

Certainly the most eye-catching lot offered by Lincoln saleroom Thos. Mawer and Son (15% buyer’s premium) on April 23 was this carved bone or ivory model of a 1940s Raleigh Roadster bicycle.

Classic English furniture continues to bring good prices at auction providing the quality is there – and this Regency sofa table, right, certainly filled that requirement when it was offered at the March 3 sale in Cornwall held by Bonhams Par (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Andrew Hartley, Ilkley. Buyer’s premium: 10 per centSOME high individual prices but, for West Yorkshire auctioneers Andrew Hartley, an unusually high casualty rate of 29 per cent… “It was a very patchy market,” said Mr Hartley summing up what so many auctioneers are finding.

A NUMBER of niche sales in spring once again showed why they are a matter of some envy among other auctioneers whose offerings are far more vulnerable to contrary winds of fashion and the general economy.

ARMS and armour sales, which themselves encompass a myriad special interests, are another area with their own micro-economy impervious to whatever wild winds are blowing in the wider market.

LONDON antique dealers Malletts are waiting to hear whether a Dublin dealer will have to pay them more than £100,000 in compensation over a stolen 18th century bureau bookcase.

A CHESS sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions on April 14 included a small book section in which a 1745 edition of Philip Stamma’s The Noble Game of Chess, the half calf gilt bindings of the two vols. now a bit loose, sold at £920.

IS this an unusual high-shouldered oviform vase or a jar missing its cover? Was it made in the Qianlong period (1736-95) or does it date to the Emperor Jiaqing’s reign (1796-1820).

Christie's New York (10/12% Buyer's premium)SNUFF bottles vary enormously in quality and price but the J&J collection has to rank as one of the world’s foremost specialist holdings. Although these exquisitely made and highly decorative vessels have a following of strong international collectors, inevitably there are limited buyers for top-end imperial quality works.

“IT was the power of the press that did it,“ said a red-faced, but delighted, auctioneer Michael Perry of Capes Dunn & Co. (15% buyer’s premium). News has only recently filtered down to the ATG of a spectacular result posted by the Manchester auctioneers back on February 22.

THE piece with star billing at Bonhams’ April 21 Antiquities auction was the dramatic white marble group, shown here, even meriting its own separate hardback catalogue.

Sotheby's New York (20/12% Buyer's Premium) PRICES have steadily risen in recent years for paintings by India’s most established modern artists notably Maqbool Fida Husain (b.1915) and Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002).