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If These Pots Could Talk: Collecting 2000 Years of British Household Pottery, by Ivor Noël Hume, published by the Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, US/University Press of New England, US. ISBN 158465161 £46hb To order in UK contact University Press Marketing on 01235 766662/ email: upm@wantage@compuserve.com

Counsel highlights undisputed lies: The most dramatic episode yet in the trial of Alfred Taubman was played out in a New York court last week. The former boss of Sotheby’s was accused by his one-time protegé, Diana ‘Dede Brooks’, of forcing her into a criminal conspiracy with arch rival Christie’s. He denies any wrongdoing.

The Frederick B. Adams Jnr. library of English & American Literature was sold by Sotheby’s on November 6 and 7. The second day was devoted entirely to Adams’ magnificent Thomas Hardy collection, but among the highlights of the general sale was an inscribed presentation copy of the 1923, first English edition of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, illustrated right, that sold at a higher than expected £80,000 to Peter Harrington.

SALES IN ITALY: The first auctions to take place in Italy this autumn in the midst of these days of gloom have been encouraging. In Rome on October 30, Christie’s (22.5/18.5% buyer’s premium) sold the contents of the residences of a collector, Michele Falzone del Barbarò. All 362 lots sold for around £400,000, far exceeding the auctioneers’ expectations.

USA: THREE LOTS representing the principal science, medicine and natural history sections of a Swann sale of October 18 are described below, and illustrated right is one a of small group of patents that featured in the New York sale.

A major name, high quality, freshness to the market and a reasonable estimate are meant to be the all-important keys to success for a picture at auction. At least they used to before the terrorist attacks of September 11.

CHECKOUT, the payment feature introduced by eBay last month to streamline transactions, is to be altered following a campaign against it by sellers.

DECO & MODERNIST FURNITURE: While much of higher-end Deco struggled to find buyers prepared to match the bullish levels seen in recent seasons, there was still some interest in this field, and the odd exception to buck the trend.

John Pearson is to the Newlyn School what Margaret Gilmour is to the Glasgow School – an Arts and Crafts metalworker who specialised in repousee work of naturalistic style.

SOTHEBY’S Holdings Inc, the auction house’s parent company, have announced third quarter revenues for 2001 of $38.4m and a net loss for the period of $33m.

MACKINTOSH: One of the most dramatic results of the series cropped up in Christie’s Important Decorative Arts auction on November 8, and it was one that would appear to have little to do with fashion, economics, or shifts in buyers’ confidence.

Like tea caddies in furniture sales, teapots have their own following in ceramics sales like the one at Phillips Leeds, where the 51/2in (14cm) Minton majolica Japanese Actor model, above right, date-coded 1874, made a within-estimate £1100 which took into account some damage to finial and spout.

YAHOO have succeeded in their court bid to deny French government jurisdiction over the firm’s activities outside France.

Although there has been talk of the furniture trade holding back at auction, dealers may now be looking to buy stock in the run-up to Christmas and the trade secured almost all of the top furniture entries in Michael J. Bowman’s 489-lot sale on 13 October.

DESMOND Morris is perhaps best known for his books and TV series exploring the behavioural patterns of humans and other animals. Not so well known is his fondness for collecting Ancient Cypriot Art, objects that reach back in time to an age when the society he so avidly studies was in its infancy.

WILKINSON’S/ CLARICE CLIFF: One might have expected Clarice Cliff pottery, with its very large UK collecting base, to be one of the areas of the market more resistant to economic concerns or the lack of confidence triggered by America’s low buying profile. But the jittery mood seems to have rubbed on the two most recent auctions to feature large quantities of Clarice material: that held by Christie’s South Kensington on November 2 and the Applied Arts sale at Sotheby’s Olympia.

With the purchase of Spink’s furniture restoration department on November 5 by its director Peter Holmes, all eyes are now looking to see what the future holds for the remaining departments at London’s oldest antique dealer.

FORMER Christie’s managing director Christopher Davidge has told the jury in the Alfred Taubman trial that Sotheby’s ex-chairman was involved in the illegal price-fixing between the two auction houses.

KAARU is a design-led developmental initiative from India which has already achieved much in sustaining the sub-continent’s rich but threatened traditional arts and crafts.

PORTRAIT miniatures are one field that has been performing strongly in recent seasons, an area of the market where the private buyer is very much in evidence.