Auctions

THE latest round of Russian art sales in London put in a consistent performance as auctioneers’ totals again benefited from a series of £1m-plus prices. Demand, however, remained selective with selling rates noticeably patchy.

THE Guildford Riverside Saleroom is to reopen under the banner of Wellers Fine Art Auctions after a seven-year absence. The firm, who had a presence in the town until ten years ago, will also continue to operate from Chertsey.

The OED lists ‘sphairistike’ as the name under which a certain Englishman, Major Walter Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a new outdoor racquet and ball game in 1874.

ANOTHER major price for L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) came courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull's latest evening sale in Edinburgh, as The Hawker's Cart sold at £550,000 to a private buyer south of the border.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

IT took 50 bids and half an hour to auction this RMB370m (£35m) scroll, by Qi Baishi (1864-1957) at Beijing's China Guardian on May 22 – the latest demonstration of the breadth of mainland demand for modern Chinese paintings by the country's most acclaimed artists.

THE man who oversaw the French Revolution's 'reign of terror' but who finally met his end at the guillotine himself, Maximilien de Robespierre, was back on the block again at the end of last month as Sotheby's auctioned an extraordinary cache of documents in Paris.

IT is symptomatic of the changes in the Poole pottery market that the joint top selling lot in a large specialist sale last month was a 1960s rimmed dish.

THE latest Modern British art sale at Christie's in London set a series of new benchmarks for the sector.

DONNINGTON Priory saleroom Dreweatts sold the collection of Bob Oliphant as part of a wider-ranging auction of traditional art and antiques on May 24-25.

ONE of the USA’s largest regional salerooms, New Orleans Auction Galleries, have filed for bankruptcy protection but struck a deal to keep trading that will ensure all consignors are paid.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.

CHINESE works of art dominated this month's Asian sales series in London but among the most successful auctions last week was Bonhams' dispersal of the second part of the Edward Wrangham (1928-2009) collection.

THE latest sales of Contemporary art in New York produced some solid results, but buyers were selective and not all the projected highlights fulfilled vendors’ expectations.

IN a series of high-profile auctions in New York that saw an underperforming run of Impressionist and Modern art sales, the eye-catching price of the week by some distance came for a 19th century historical genre painting.

"The best piece of furniture sold in Shropshire in a decade," enthused Shrewsbury auctioneer Jeremy Lamond of Halls.

SOTHEBY'S will sell the earliest rules of club football on July 14. They are part of a lot which includes the historic archive of the world’s oldest football club, Sheffield FC.

Tennants sale in Leyburn on March 24-26 enjoyed a substantial contribution from George Tinworth (1843-1913) and his wonderful anthropomorphic mice.

BACK in the 1980s, on the back of the Lalique boom, there used to be fairly regular offerings of scent bottles at auction in London.

THEY may look plain and simple, but this pair of silver wall-hanging candle scones had private and trade bidders clamouring to buy when they came up for sale last week at Colchester auction rooms Reeman Dansie.