Auctions
News and previews of art and antiques sold at auctions throughout the UK and overseas, from multi-million-pound blockbusters to affordable collectables.
Quality overrides damage limitations of bids: But will intrusive TV cameras give vendors the wrong ideas?
28 April 2004FOUR house clearances of properties each valued at over £1m meant some long and frantic hours of valuing and cataloguing for Wellers (15% buyer's premium)auctioneer Tim Duggan – three heavy weeks rewarded when the March 13 sale day was one of the best ever at the Surrey rooms with 95 per cent of the 1200 lots getting away notching up a total of well over £100,000.
The Old Rectory at Banningham
28 April 2004BOOKS, manuscripts and photographs from The Old Rectory, at Banningham in Norfolk, provided a separately catalogued section of a three-day March 21-23 contents sale conducted by Bonhams and represented 70 years of collecting by the owner, picture restorer Bryan Hall, and his father, the Rev. William Hall, who was at one time Vicar of Barton Turf and Smallburgh.
In curators we trust
28 April 2004SIX lots from Bonhams' (17.5/10% buyer's premium) March 22-24 sale at The Old Rectory, Banningham will be making their way back whence they came, National Trust curators having identified them (Bonhams had only spotted one) as having been bought by the Rev. Hall & Son at the 1951 contents sale of Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk. The house now belongs to the Trust which rescued it from demolition.
Decorative values shine through again
28 April 2004THE strength of the decorative market was underlined by a number of lots offered by Woolley & Wallis, (15% buyer’s premium) on March 16, including the day’s best seller, a pair of c.1860 bronze and ormolu twin-light candelabra, one shown right.
How the Allied landings affected the market
28 April 2004THE Paris expert Alain Weill makes a habit of holding sales which are rather more interesting than those of many of his colleagues. For sure they have a strong Gallic slant, but then sales in London are strongly biased towards the British series.
The onward march of technology
28 April 2004Christie’s South Kensington (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) hold three Scientific Instruments sale a year but reserve the spring sale for a restricted number of high-quality objects. Tom Newth, head of the department, reports the market picking up in the last six months, with strong competition for microscopes and Islamic astronomical instruments.
A steady start for furniture standards
28 April 2004THE March 5 sale at Dee Atkinson & Harrison's (10% buyer's premium) West Yorkshire saleroom was the first antiques offering of the year and, after an 83 per cent selling rate on nearly 700 lots, the auctioneers took encouragement from the way the market seemed to be picking up, with furniture, at last, edging out of the doldrums.
Traditional scenes of the times...
28 April 2004THERE was no doubt about which were the two outstanding lots at Hamptons’ (15% buyer’s premium) March 24 picture sale in Godalming.
But older prints need the Nelson touch
28 April 2004UNLIKE the market for oil paintings, where traditional images appear to be going through something of a mini-revival, print auctions show signs of being a sector where the critical mass of demand has shifted permanently towards Modern and Contemporary.
Gershwin’s musical sketch book is a $100,000 hit in California
28 April 2004ONE notable item from the Bonhams & Butterfields sale of March 23 was a rare copy of Jacques Gautier d’Agoty’s colour printed Anatomie de la Tête of 1748 that made $19,000 (£10,220) – but not the top price lot, a Gershwin sketchbook that made $100,000, or indeed several other interesting items.
A handsome price for a cab
28 April 2004SPRING may not seem the optimum time to be selling rocking horses but two Victorian-style examples did well at the March 4 sale held by Hobbs & Parker (10% buyer’s premium) at Ashford, Kent.
A mixed picture at Belgian art sales
28 April 2004THERE was some erratic bidding for the pictures which dominated Belgian auctions in March.
How steerage proved to be better than First Class…
27 April 2004IN these days of global marketing and online bidding it is reassuring to know that, just occasionally, with some wit and a little good fortune, one can still make a good wage from a solitary find at the local auction room.
A fascinating tale that weaves its way to £180,000
27 April 2004Right: this Morris & Co. tapestry titled Greenery sold for £180,000 (plus 17.5/10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull on April 21. The outstanding lot of the firm’s Decorative Arts sale was sold to a buyer from the London area, who said: “I fell in love with it the moment I saw it and just had to have it, it is a beautiful thing and worth every penny.”
Success in miniature
27 April 2004BONHAMS notched up a clutch of auction records and an impressive £1.28m total for the Albion Collection of portrait miniatures in Bond Street on April 22.
Restorer’s dream sale
27 April 2004THIS Saturday (May 1) Thomson Roddick & Medcalf will be selling the entire stock-in-trade of Edinburgh restorer and cabinetmaker William Trist at its Esbank saleroom.
Fashion and other optical illusions
22 April 2004Though the catalogue did contain a selection of antiquarian and collectable books of a general nature, the March 31 sale held by Hampton & Littlewood of Exeter was notable for two specialised collections – the Ron Morris collection of magic lanterns, optical toys and related books and ephemera, and the collection of costume and fashion books formed by the late Janet Hill.
Watt’s what on the watch front now in Bond Street
19 April 2004A CLUTCH of strong horological results for rare pieces by good makers or with technical innovations were seen in late March at Sotheby’s Bond Street (20/12% buyer’s premium).
Russia’s answer to Jack Vettriano
19 April 2004ON Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs of April 28 the castaway was painter Jack Vettriano (b. 1954). When asked by presenter Sue Lawley how much he thought his celebrated oil, The Singing Butler, would sell for at Sotheby’s on April 19, Vettriano’s response was that it would exceed the top estimate of £200,000.
PREVIEW
19 April 2004It is not unusual for an auctioneer to receive enquiries from members of the public who have seen items ‘identical’ to theirs in a newspaper, a magazine or on television. In reality the Queen Anne walnut chest turns out to be a 1920s reproduction worth £100 – but, yes, they do look almost identical.
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