Auctions

UK: Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, is the usual venue for Jim Railton's, Gosforth, spring sale, but the predations of Foot and Mouth meant that it had to be relocated to one of the smarter districts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

UK: Salvaged from the potting shed of a local farmhouse, this George II giltwood and marble topped console table attracted fierce bidding at Philip Serrell’s Malvern salerooms on May 10.

An 8th/9th century Syrian alabaster column capital provided the highest price for an object in London's spring Islamic series of sales.

Such is the ubiquity of lamp bases that have been converted from vases that rarely does one encounter a genuine collector’s item in this field, but this abstracted stoneware example produced for the Atlantis range of Poole pottery in the early 1970s, was a refreshing discovery. consigned to the Applied Arts sale at Sotheby’s South (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) near Billingshurst on March 27.

USA: Fears that the recent slowdown in the US economy would drastically affect the top end of the art market were to some extent realised at New York’s Impressionist and Modern sales last week.

Dennis Tito is evidently not the only American millionaire with a fascination for space exploration.

UK: Moroccan textiles were the strong suit in Christie’s South Kensington’s May 4 sale of Islamic and Indian textiles, none more so than this impressive 2ft 3in x 8ft x6in (70cm x 2.6m) silk-embroidered linen ceremonial panel dated to the 18th century and worked with striking abstract designs.

One of the high points of Bonhams & Brooks’ May 2 sale in the London Islamic Series of sales was a 10in (25cm) square Isnik tile, pictured, dated to c.1580.

This month sees New York auctioneers Doyle (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) offering two significant separately-catalogued single-owner collections within the space of a fortnight.

Silver spirit labels (‘Holland’ refers to Dutch Gin) are not quite two a penny, but they are among the cheapest drinking trinkets available.

Having dispersed the collection of Sir John Gielgud early last month Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) went on to offer that of his good friend, fellow thespian and fellow knight of the realm, the late Sir Ralph Richardson, on April 27.

UK: A dozen telephone lines led to the Tithe Barn salerooms of Bruton Knowles, near Cheltenham on April 26, all contesting the finest lot of period satinwood in the provinces this year.

UK: This elegant 4ft 3in (1.3m) wide early Georgian mahogany two-door commode stole the show at Phillips’ furniture sale in London on Tuesday, April 24, when it sold for £500,000 to London dealers Jeremy Ltd.

UK: An ancient Celtic gold ornament provided the high point of Christie’s South Kensington’s Antiquities sale last week when it was purchased for £1m by London’s British Museum, to whom it was on loan from 1993 to 2000.

Every sector of the auction market has been feeling jittery about the prospect of economic slowdown in the US. Wine sales have already had to re-adjust to more sober trading conditions after the binge of sales that led up to Millennium and auctioneers on both sides of the Atlantic have been understandably nervous about rich clients thinking that $5000 cases of wine have become an unjustifiable luxury.

LONDON-based Haughton International Fairs have changed the name of their International 20th Century Arts Fair to The International Art + Design Fair 1900-2001.

“IT’S a British phenomenon,” said Sheffield Railwayana’s specialist Ian Wright of the wealthy private collectors who regularly pay thousands of pounds for locomotive nameplates, cabsides, posters and railway ephemera in Sheffield Railwayana's quarterly sales.

Heavy snow across Staffordshire on the morning of this 800-lot dispersal did not deter buyers, with the auctioneers noticing a marked increase in the usual number of phone bids.

GOOD stock furniture was the strength of this 289-lot, £130,000 Halls Shropshire sale on March 9 where the top price was taken by a c.1775 two-tier mahogany dumbwaiter.

UK: This Urbino majolica istoriato dish, depicting the cutting of Samson’s hair and attributed to Francesco Xanto Avelli di Rovigo, was discovered in a box of effects following a clearance at a Fenland farmhouse and entered for sale at Golding Young & Co. of Grantham on April 11.