Auctions

Though not so credited, this coloured lithograph, Grand Prix de l’A.C.F. 1913 (Motocyclettes) has a very Gamy/Montaut look about it. In the literature section of a motoring sale held by Bonhams at the RAF Museum, Hendon, on February 25, it sold at £250.

THE Roberts Holy Land offered in the 120-lot book section of this Kent sale at Mervyn Carey on 20 February, a six-vol. 1855 quarto edition, had been kept in a barn and had virtually disintegrated over the years.

Christie’s (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) staged their first Automobile sale in Paris on February 12 at the Rétromobile vintage car show, which attracts 100,000 visitors every year.

BETTER known for its polo club than its fine art, Cowdray Park in Midhurst, Sussex nevertheless provided Hampshire auctioneers Jacobs & Hunt with some talking points among a quantity of the “surplus to requirements” chattels the owners of the country pile had decided to get rid of.

NEW YORK: MARINE paintings are a specialist area which have received plenty of attention from auction houses eager to tap into the wealth of those rich enough to enjoy mucking around in boats.

“…a show, not a place to live,” was how Lord Gowrie summed up David Sylvester’s approach to decorating his homes in a tribute previewing Sotheby’s sale of the art critic and curator’s collection last month.

Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, designed by Robert Adam and James Paine, is one of Britain’s best known neo-classical stately homes. It has been home to the Curzons for centuries and although its principal contents were long ago gifted to the National Trust, the family still occupy a substantial wing and they have instructed Nottingham auctioneers Neales to hold an attic sale of their possessions this month on the premises.

Perfect conditions were required for the production of 18th century soft paste porcelain, but work only began on this rare group, right, after three ships laden with 44 factory staff and 88 tons of equipment had been ferried from Italy to Spain.

THE Taunton rooms of Greenslade Taylor Hunt (10 per cent buyer’s premium) were graced with the presence of a “minor media celebrity”, on St. Valentine’s day when this rare Steiff rod-jointed teddy bear, right, known as Percy, made an appearance.

HOLLAND: IN honour of the Netherlands’ long tradition of landscapes and town scenes Christie’s Amsterdam (buyer’s premium 20.825 per cent) had a topographical theme to its pictures sale on January 22.

BELGIUM: Antwerp’s four main auction-houses have announced plans to co-ordinate their sales and viewings for the first time.

SILVER: Good commercially appealing entries were what was finding favour with both trade and private buyers at Christie’s South Kensington’s second silver sale of the year, the 158-lot £136,123 gathering held on February 19.

THE relative strength of Old Master paintings in comparison to other sectors of the market has been noted at a number of recent auctions, but this new-found strength, it seems, is not just restricted to top-end sales in London and New York.

It was standing room only at Sotheby’s Bond Street on February 26 when the auctioneers sold the David Sylvester collection. In a room packed with dealers, collectors and friends of the late art critic, plus a phalanx of Sotheby’s staff manning a bank of telephones, the auctioneers offered 149 lots of paintings, drawings, sculpture, tribal art and antiquities, and as lot after lot outstripped the estimates, it was clear that their £1m projection was going to be dramatically exceeded.

THE auctioneers’ decision to place the first half of a sizeable consignment of furniture from a North Oxfordshire house in Mallams January sale paid dividends when the 87 lots provided half of the £130,000 total of the 277-lot sale.

PARIS: The whole history of French coins from Gaulish times to the present was covered by the Jean Vinchon (10.764% buyer’s premium) sale in Paris on November 6. Because it was a single collection rather than the random assemblage that chance had brought across the counter there were many choice examples on offer.

THE only problem with a number of highly-collectable Doulton pieces put into the January 30 sale at Dorking held by Crow’s Auction Gallery (10% buyer’s premium) was restoration, and estimates reflected this.

USA: Wedgwood wares formed a significant slice of Skinner’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 890-lot auction of English and Continental furniture and decorations on January 19. Of the 230-odd lots of ceramics that featured in the sale, two-thirds comprised works from that factory.

A large desert Caravane by Victor Huguet (c.1895), 4ft 4in x 6ft 8in (1.31 x 2.02m) and inspired by Fromentin, led the Delorme-Fraysse picture sale on February 12 with €82,000 (£51,200).

FOOTBALL programmes were the mainstay of this mixed book, card and ephemera sale for Acorn Auctions in Trafford Park, but though one job lot of two dozen Manchester United programmes of 1960s-80s vintage did sell for £620, a similar number of single sheet programmes of 1945-46, valued at up to £2000, failed to sell, and for once it was Manchester City who came out on top.