Auctions

THE busiest week of the year for Old Masters in London provided further signs that the top end of this market is surviving the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

IN his long career, Leslie Weller of Weller King in West Sussex has handled many varied and interesting commissions, but he now finds himself in a unique position, having been asked by a client in the north of England to find a new home for a complete collection of Arts and Crafts furniture.

BRINGING out the bidders in Banbury, this Indian Mughal carved ivory khandjar handle sold for £24,000 at Holloways' latest sale.

THE readjustment taking place at the top end of the contemporary and modern art market was once again in evidence at the latest flagship London auction series.

ALBERT Richard Smith was obsessed from childhood with the idea that he might one day climb Mont Blanc. There were false starts and setbacks, financial and social, but in 1851 he finally got to stand on the peak of his dreams and spent the next few years building a small fortune on the strength of that achievement.

A DOZEN telephone bidders competed for a remarkable cache of primary provenanced Cotswolds School furniture offered by Duke's in Dorchester on June 18.

HUDDERSFIELD Town may not feature on Sky Sports as much as Manchester United nowadays, but back in the mid-1920s it was the Terriers rather than the Red Devils who were the team to watch.

JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the softening Martinware market, along comes a £26,000 spoon-warmer.

THIS mysterious liveried Austin A40 Dinky van made for the Spanish company Omnisport sold for £6400 on the phone to a British collector at Wallis & Wallis in Lewes, East Sussex on June 8.

SOTHEBY’S New York hold the W. Graham Arader sale on June 19, offering 204 lots from the well-known American prints and maps specialist.

ALTHOUGH this summer’s Russian art auctions in London failed to bring the gold rush of previous years, there was some relief in the salerooms that demand did not sink even further.

WHEN John Harrison set about solving the problem of how to measure longitude, the name Association would have held a special resonance for him.

WHEN a market softens, it is often best to return to first principles – the core values of condition, market freshness and pricing that can be overlooked when an area of collecting really ‘takes off’.

COLOGNE auctioneers Van Ham offered this oil painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), hidden from public view for over 70 years, at their latest sale.

TURN the leaves of ‘A sketchbook belonging to Lady Julia Conyers...’ and you will find some 80 drawings and watercolours by Lady Julia and her society friends that are for the most part unexceptional and predictable.

There were local, or at least county, connections when this large linocut print, ‘Church and Thunderstorm’ by Edward Bawden (1903-1989) was offered by Essex auctioneers Sworders at their spring Country House sale.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis have broken their own UK regional record with the sale last week of a Qianlong jade carving of a water buffalo for £3.4m. It establishes a massive new UK landmark for any work of art sold at auction outside London.

AFTER the resignation of the speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin last week, the subject of this cartoon of the 1830s could hardy have been more topical.

After more than 40 years, Sotheby’s have scrapped their annual sale at Gleneagles and will now hold biannual sales of Scottish art in London.

Washington, D.C. auctioneers Sloans & Kenyon found this English period work by the Italian Baroque painter Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) in the basement of a local home.