Auctions

TOTAL auction sales in France rose by 8.6 per cent in 2011 to €2.38bn. Art, antiques and other collectors' sales accounted for just over half that figure at €1.25bn, a record total that surpassed the boom years of 2006 and 2007, as well as 2009 when the Yves St Laurent sale at Christie's in Paris gave a huge boost in what was otherwise a lacklustre year.

A REMARKABLE Chelsea porcelain bust with the potential to establish a new record for English porcelain will be offered for sale by Bonhams on April 18.

“THERE shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of ale and one measure of corn – namely, the London quart.”

THE first sale at new premises for Ipswich auctioneers Lockdales, now at the former officers’ barracks in Martlesham Heath, included two pieces of silver and enamel ware of the type associated with the Solvychegodsk region.

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.

FOUR centuries of social, commercial and military history dictate that South Africa is just occasionally the source of rare European antiques and works of art.

A WELL-PRESERVED James Hammond typewriter from the 1880s is itself a rare item, but the example offered for sale by Gildings in Market Harborough in Leicestershire on February 21 attracted greater interest on account of its first owner, Lewis Carroll (1832-98).

ONLY a matter of weeks after the closure of Bonhams’ long-running saleroom in Knowle, a new auction house has opened in the Warwickshire town.

FRESH from their multi-million dollar Prospero triumph in New York, Baldwin’s are preparing to offer an outstanding selection of Islamic rarities as part of London Islamic Week in April.

The latest sale at Duke’s of Dorchester included this 16in (41cm) wide French chinoiserie ormolu and lacquered bronze mantel clock c.1750.

THE term ‘masterpiece’ is all too commonplace in auctioneering hyperbole, but just occasionally it rings true.

IN what promises to be a massive test of the market for golfiana, Christie’s will auction the world’s most important private collection of golf art and memorabilia on May 30.

THE two Tiffany works of art that gave strong performances within days of each other in recent US sales were not the usual lamps, glassware or table silver.

This signed William Scott (1913-89) lithograph of Mousehole harbour in Cornwall was spotted during a furniture valuation before being entered into Chorley’s latest sale in Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire.

ON April 30, Philadelphia auctioneers Freeman’s will sell flags from the U.S. Navy’s most revered ship, the Constitution.

KNOCKED down at £19m, Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Henrietta Moraes was the top lot of London’s Contemporary art auction series last week by some margin.

PRICES for Henry Moore (1898-1986) have been rising consistently in recent years, but the performance of this large-scale bronze sculpture at auction last week dramatically lifted the artist to previously unseen levels.

Posters of St Moritz, Davos, Gstaad continue to dominate at ski sales in London.

Bidders in the room, on the phones and the internet were all in action last week to contest the 475-lot sale of the collection of Will Fisher, founder of London dealers Jamb, at Christie’s South Kensington.

Dublin fine art auctioneers James Adam believe uncertainty regarding the euro has helped rather than hindered the Irish art market.