Auctions

WE have heard a lot about antiques being out of fashion, and the best reply is that if antiques are presented stylishly they are always in fashion. Just look at a window of upmarket Fifth Avenue Manhattan store Saks during New York’s Fashion Week. The chief window designer of Saks called on East 61 St dealers Historical Design and said he had the idea of introducing Saks’ new shoe floor with high fashion shoes displayed on vintage chairs.

Provincial auctioneer’s novel twist for breaking into the American market

This heraldic ceramic charger by Alfred and Louise Powell, c.1920, is one of 140 examples of Cotswold Arts and Crafts on view at Simon Chorley Art & Antiques from October 13-21 as part of a loan exhibition titled Cotswold Craftsmen, 1894 to the present day.

A pair of 19th century Venetian views by Italian artist Francesco Zanin proved to be the high point of a Silver Jubilee auction held by Ewbank auctioneers of Surrey on September 20 and provided their owner, a local Dorking family, with an unexpected financial bonus when they sold for multiples of their original estimates.

The auction of the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya collection of Russian art was dramatically cancelled the day before the sale following an offer from a Russian businessman for the entire collection.

DATES for the launch of The Beijing International Chinese Antique Fair have been moved to November 30-December 4 from November 28 to December 2 as initially announced. This is described as an important Government project and, as such, special services for exhibitors and visitors are being arranged.

Shanghai seems all the rage these days. Hot on the heels of the launch of two new international fairs — ShContemporary in early September, and the Shanghai Antiques & Jewellery Fair (October 13-21) — Artcurial are opening premises on Yongjia Lu, in the French Concession district of Shanghai, to stage lectures and exhibitions, as well as hosting an art bookshop — much along the lines of the firm’s Paris HQ at the Hôtel Dassault on the Champs-Elysées.

Suffolk antique tool auctioneer Tony Murland (10% buyer’s premium) is known for his hyperbolic cataloguing but the description accompanying this nearly 400-year-old horn handled hunting knife was a classic.

AS Bloomsbury Auctions get set for the opening of their new saleroom in New York this month, their turnover for the first six months of 2007 showed a 45 per cent increase on the same period last year.

When Wales’ most popular 20th century artist Sir Kyffin Williams passed away last year he bequeathed the furniture from his Anglesey home to the University College of North Wales. Numerous pieces that the University did not require turned up in The Wales and West Country Sale at Bonhams Bath on June 25.

THIS George II walnut syphon tube wheel barometer by John Hallifax of Barnsley, c.1730, was one of the 209 lots from the Edwin Banfield collection offered by Dreweatt Neate of Donnington Priory on September 4. In a white glove sale all the lots found buyers.

Cheshire auctioneer Sir Patrick Cheyne will sell a remarkable cache of work by the Sheffield School watercolourist George Hamilton Constantine (1878-1967) on September 7.

This 18th century needlework panel appears to be a fragment of a work conceived on almost Bayeux Tapestry proportions.

Following the announcement in August of a newly-discovered 1938 fairground scene by Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) scheduled to appear at Sotheby’s on December 13, it has emerged that the scene depicted is not, in fact, Beswick Fair, near Manchester, as had been mooted.

LONDON coins, medals and stamps specialists Spink have bought the American stamp auctioneers Shreves Philatelic Galleries.

Leyburn auctioneers Tennants have standardised their buyer’s premium rates across their sales.

OLD film footage of youngsters playing amid the rubble of the Blitz-ravaged London showed that even in our darkest hour war could be turned into a game.

Kent’s Canterbury Auction Galleries were one of the few salerooms to hold a good quality art and antiques sale in August.

As of September 1, the Penkridge Salerooms come under new ownership.

DUBLIN auctioneers James Adam have negotiated a €3.5m (£2.4m) sale of remarkable papers setting a record for a single transaction of documents relating to the 1916 Easter Rising.