Auctions

A rare discovery of two completely unknown paintings by Goya has aroused considerable interest in Madrid. Discovered during a visit to a family in Madrid, the two paintings of Tobias and the Angel and The Holy Family were identified by the picture expert of Alcalá Subastas, Richard de Willermin.

The classic car market has received a twin injection of interest, with Sotheby’s seeming set to return to the fray and a new face entering the Olympia arena. H&H Classic Auctions of Warrington have established a global reputation with their sales at Buxton, in Derbyshire’s Peak District. Riding high on the success of a recent European record for a Mercedes Benz 300SL (£174,000), they are now looking to expand into London.

NOTED New York specialists in Japanese works of art Flying Cranes are not only showing at the International Asian Art Fair from March 28 to April 2 at the Seventh Regiment Armory, they also hold an exhibition of exceptional Japanese studio ceramics by 19th century court artists at their main showroom, Gallery 58 at the Manhattan Art & Antiques Center, 1050 Second Avenue at 56th Street.

This pair of Qianlong turquoise-enamelled Cong vases, 8in (20cm) tall, with coral trigram decoration in relief, made €320,000 (£221,000) against an estimate of €20,000 at the March 7 sale at Piasa Oriental sale (17.94/11.96% buyer’s premium).

Coming up in ....Hendon: The Bowers archive, depicting some of the most historic and important monochrome images of the motoring industry dating from the early part of the 20th century to the 1950s, will be included in Bonhams’ sale of Collectors’ Motor Cars, Cycles, Automobilia, Toys & Models at the RAF Museum, Hendon on April 28.

The twice-a-year Baldwin, Ma, Gillio, Monetarium sale of Far Eastern coins this time took place in Singapore on March 6. There has been a sea-change in the type of goods offered. Hitherto Chinese coins of all periods have been on sale. The Chinese have a penchant for dollar-sized silver coins. Indeed there are many varieties which were struck for major cities in that vast country. What has changed is that in this sale there was an emphasis on these later coins.

AN album containing 101 photographs of military, topographical, architectural and sporting subjects in India, Kashmir and Afghanistan was the principal attraction for some in a March 12 sale at Hay-on-Wye held by Y Gelli.

A veritable feast of textiles from an older era will be up for grabs in a big way next month in Paris when French auctioneer Olivier Coutau-Begarie holds a mammoth two-day dispersal at Richelieu-Drouot on April 29 and 30 of over 5000 pieces of antique silks, tapestries and embroideries from the House of Hamot, a French textile retailer and manufacturer of carpets and tapestries.

ON May 6 Vienna’s top auction house, Dorotheum, holds an important Design sale featuring works from the turn of the last century by such luminaries as Adolf Loos, Josef Hofmann and Carlo Bugatti through to some 20 square metres of aluminium flooring from the Berlin Skoda Boutique, designed by Mark Newson in 1992.

The Oriental glazes of the Midlands Arts and Crafts pottery known as Ruskinware have proved remarkably popular in the past year, as the disposal of the Wade collection at Sotheby’s and the Birkett Collection at Bonhams took prices in this market to unprecedented levels.

The vessel in the foreground of the photograph reproduced right, which at first glance appears to have been deliberately rolled over onto its side, or careened, but which may of course be a special craft, looks uncannily like a vast stranded fish. It is seen here in one of 129 albumen prints of photographs by Felice Beato that sold at £26,000 to Shapero in a Bonhams sale of March 11.

PIMLICO-based furniture designer David Linley pays homage to Art Deco with his latest furniture launch, the Salon Collection, comprising a console table, side table, coffee table, cabinet, sofa and mirror, all currently available from Linley, 60 Pimlico Road, London SW1.

PICTURES of dogs are big business as Bonhams’ & Doyle’s sale of Dogs in Art in New York on February 11 highlighted. And an artist frequently featured in these New York sales brought James Adam (15% buyer’s premium) of Dublin success on March 12.

Signed by Hillary and other members of the 1953 Everest expedition (though not by Tensing, whose right to be known as the true conqueror of the mountain is still being fervently pressed by his compatriots), a deluxe copy of Alfred Gregory’s The Picture of Everest, illustrated with 42 full-colour reproductions of photographs and here specially bound in vellum, sold at $1200 (£750) in a special Himalayas section of a February 13 travel sale held by Swanns.

Top price in the latest round of ceramics sales in London was the £22,000 paid at Christie’s King Street rooms on February 24 for this 9in (23cm) wide mid-17th century delft posset pot.

£16,500 clock adds to the maker’s – and seller’s reputation: THE Dent family of clockmakers have achieved lasting fame as the builders of the clock mechanism for St Stephen’s Tower – known to tourists worldwide as Big Ben. But it was not just on the grand scale that they excelled.

April 12 marks the 42nd anniversary of man’s first space flight by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and Swann Galleries of New York have chosen that date to launch their first space exploration sale.

The market for early dated Delftware showed its claws at the Shrewsbury salerooms of Halls on March 7, where this 5in (13cm) tall tin-glazed earthenware cat jug from 1677 was auctioned with expectations of £20,000-25,000. Spotted by auctioneer Jeremy Lamond hiding behind a much-admired Royal Crown Derby saucer (worth £20-30) on the mantelpiece of a Warwickshire home, the chipped and fritted feline was added to a select group of a dozen jugs, nine of which are dated.

An advertisement in the Antiques Trade Gazette has brought to light a remarkable coincidence – that the two paintings illustrated here, clearly depicting the same subject, are both to be auctioned on the same day by two different auctioneers at opposite ends of the country.

“Is it 19th century?” a London dealer inquired of this unusual famille verte vase illustrated right which had been consigned to Woolley & Wallis’s sale with its partner, the more classical, yen yen vase, far right.