Auctions

VANCOUVER auction house Heffel have taken nearly £900,000 in a single online auction, including one painting which sold for more than £250,000.

There’s been plenty of speculation about who might have paid £1.7m plus 17.5 per cent premium for the two recently-rediscovered Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455) panels of Dominican saints at Duke’s of Dorchester on April 19.

For the second time in the space of a week a UK provincial auctioneer was celebrating a million-pound sale of works by one of the world’s most famous artists.

When asked in an interview of 1906 which of his works he valued most, pâte-sur-pâte master Louis Solon responded: “If the whole of my production were doomed to be destroyed, and I was asked to point out a few specimens that, in my estimation, deserved to be spared, it is from the works made at Minton during my last years there that I would unhesitatingly make my selection.”

after months of pre-sale coverage in the media, the two recently rediscovered panels of Dominican saints from Fra Angelico’s celebrated 1438-40 high altarpiece for the Church of San Marco in Florence finally came under the hammer at Duke’s of Dorchester last Thursday, when they fetched £1.7m.

Bonhams have joined the push for Middle Eastern business by announcing the opening of a sales office in Dubai with a first auction scheduled for early November.

The Asian art juggernaut thunders on with little sign of any slowdown in the market. If anything, the pace seems to be intensifying.

After months of speculation, the fate of Dumfries House, the Adam-designed and Chippendale-furnished Scottish Palladian house and estate in Ayrshire looks to be sealed.

The subject matter of this mid-14th century gold ground may be unfamiliar to many, but that is no surprise – the treatment is thought to be unique in early Italian painting.

There was high excitement at The Auction Centre, Leyburn on March 30 when Sean Keating’s Ulysses off Connemara shot to a remarkable £400,000 (plus 15/10 per cent premium), a record for the artist and a house record for Tennants.

The Birmingham industrialist and designer Matthew Boulton was the toast of the Paris salerooms last week when this impressive ormolu-mounted fluorspar vase was sold at Drouot Richelieu for €170,000 (£121,430) plus premium.

Dreweatt Neate Neales in Nottingham will hold the first of a series of sales for Oxfam on April 19. Recent visitors to the charity’s website or one of its network of 750 high street shops may have noticed the launch of ‘Valued at Oxfam’.

The highlight of the English and Continental furniture and objects sale conducted Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on March 21 was this walnut, rosewood veneered, satinwood crossbanded and parcel gilt side table c.1805.

Scandinavian auction house Bukowskis have a new owner.

SIR Harry Newton (1871-1951), whose library provided some of the finest things in a £730,000 book sale held by Duke’s of Dorchester on March 8, was an adherent of the old ‘Cabinet’ school of collecting – buying key works of literature and science.

On March 6, amid a scrum of journalists and anoraks, Bonhams sold the Angels collection of stage and screen costume including Obi Wan Kenobi’s hooded cloak from the original Star Wars film, knocked down below expectations at £45,000.

The majolica market may have cooled a little since the white hot days of the 1990s but rarities still have the capacity to command imposing sums at auction.

THE imminent smoking ban and the government’s attempts to tackle binge drinking wouldn’t have gone down too well with the Reffley Brethren.

This Chinese turquoise ground ewer, standing just 73/4in (19.7cm) high, belongs to a group of ritual wares specially commissioned by the Qing Court for placement on Buddhist altars. Their function was for ceremonial use in palaces and temples either within the Forbidden Palace or Bishushanzhuang in Chengde.

The hotels of Newbury were full of lovers on Valentine’s Day – lovers of Chinese jade. A packed room and a full bank of telephones were buzzing as Dreweatt Neate sold Chinese jade from the collection of the late June, Lady Horlick, including many pieces acquired from the London trade in the 1960s and 1970s and not seen on the market since then.