Auctions

FRANCE: SEVENTEEN terracotta statuettes from Nigeria (Nok) and Niger (Bura), expected to bring prices between £250 and £5000, were withdrawn from sale at the Hôtel Drouot on April 21 after last-minute objections from Nigeria and Niger.

Highly desirable Clarice Cliff Blue Lucerne globular vase, 6in (15cm) high, shape 370, decorated with a stylised geometric Mediterranean landscape.

UK: TO the businessman in late 18th century rural England, these porcelain tokens would only have been worth a couple of shillings each, but to bidders at Dreweatt Neate’s Banbury salerooms on March 29 their value was to be measured in thousands of pounds.

The Berkshire auctioneers Dreweatt Neate led the table of provincial auctioneers who were prepared to reveal their turnover for 1999.

UK: MANCHESTER United may be the most successful football team in the world at present, but it was a reminder of the most tragic event in the history of the club which stirred bidders at Phillips sale of the Leslie Millman collection of team programmes and memorabilia at Old Trafford on April 10-11.

UK & US: PHILLIPS’ traditional reputation as the permanent poor relation of Sotheby’s and Christie’s at the top end of the international art market could be turned on its head by a clutch of high value consignments soon to be offered in London and New York.

UK: THE prophet Ezekiel may not have recognised this Victorian model from the original which he was told to build by a shining man “upon a very high mountain” 3000 years ago, but no matter – this scale version of Solomon’s Temple stands alone as a unique creation in the public spirit.

UK: Two Victorian scale models of ancient temples turned up in the salerooms at the start of Spring, the Temple of Solomon at Bonhams on March 29 (see "Victorian scale model of the Temple of Solomon", above) and this erudite copy of the Parthenon at the Chester salerooms of Halls on April 5.

UK: Christie’s are to sell a selection of works of art from the Wernher Collection, expected to fetch over £10m, as the highlight of their summer season.

UK: FEW silhouettes are as desirable as those portraits of military officers produced by John Buncombe, and few of those are as valuable as the example illustrated here, which was the highlight of a residual 17-lot group of silhouettes from the Christie Collection, consigned to Christie’s (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) South Kensington sale on March 14.

UK: A Shining Palace, a 2ft 1/4in by 20in (62 x 51cm) oil on canvas view of Venice, signed by William John Leech (1881-1968) had been consigned to a sale conducted by Mainstreet Auctions in the village of Saint Boswells on March 4, 2000 where it was spotted by a runner from the south east of England.

UK: This early 18th century Welsh oak dresser had everything collectors of vernacular furniture want – clean unaltered condition, good colour, watertight provenance and extraordinary size.

UK: ONE of the most important drawings to appear at auction in London will be put up for sale at Christie's on July 4.

UK: IN THE primitive pantheon of vernacular furniture, the bread and cheese cupboard is an unusually specialised form, hence the immense interest from country furniture buffs in the oak example here which was consigned to the Colwyn Bay rooms of Rogers Jones and Co. for sale on February 29.

UK: THIS Linthorpe pre-Columbian-style pottery vessel, designed by Dr Christopher Dresser during his time as Art Superintendent at John Harrison's Middlesborough factory c.1879-81, was sold to London's New Century by Darlington auctioneer Thomas Watson & Son for £1500 (plus 15 per cent premium) on March 21.

UK: SOTHEBY'S are to sell a remarkably well-preserved and restored 18th century Spitalfields London town house and its contents, the home of the late Michael Gillingham, a well-known London art and antique dealer.

UK: A pair of gilt and cedarwood girandoles in the neoclassical manner, 5ft 9in high by 3ft wide (1.75m x 91cm), from the contents of Barnby Moor House, near Retford offered by Neales of Nottingham on February 24.

UK: THE Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland and England has been well documented both in commercial salerooms and academic exhibitions, and indeed the value of work designed by the likes of William Morris and Robert Lorimar has never been more popular.<b

AUSTRIA: THE ENTRY of Jörg Haider's far-right Freedom Party into the Austrian government could have repercussions for the country's art market, warns Otto Hans Ressler, director of Austria's second-largest auction firm Wiener Kunst.

UK: The factors which make for a desirable cased fish are four-fold: the case (bowfronts are most popular), the label of a good taxidermist such as Cooper, condition and (as the joker in the pack) the beast itself.