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London doubles Impressionist takings

13 December 1999

The international market for Impressionist and Modern art saw further consolidation last week in London when Sotheby’s and Christie’s Part I and Part II sales turned over a combined total of £86.3m, some 45 per cent up on the £47.8m achieved at the equivalent sales last year.

ISVA opt for RICS ‘agenda for change’

13 December 1999

UK: THE Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers will be absorbed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors following an overwhelming vote in favour of the move by ISVA members.

Christie’s deny plans to get rid of dealers

06 December 1999

UK: CHRISTIE’S have denied rumours that they plan to give notices to quit to their gallery leaseholders in Ryder and Bury Streets, St James’s, so that they can redevelop the premises.

Lowry sets new paintings record

06 December 1999

UK: THE Professional Football Association was the successful bidder for L.S. Lowry’s crowd scene Going to the Match at Sotheby’s London last Wednesday, setting the record for the highest auction price for a Modern British painting at £1.75m

Not just a lot of hot air

30 November 1999

UK: PARIS salons were well known for flatulence in conversation. After each manned flight of giant balloons from the gardens of Versailles during the late 18th and 19th centuries, young men who wished to sound like scientists would earnestly debate whether hydrogen gas or hot air allowed the better flight.

Silesian covered goblet fetches £98,000

30 November 1999

UK: AN international mix of private collectors, dealers and institutions turned out to bid for an old and celebrated collection of European glass formed by the late Dr. Otto Dettmers of Bremen when it went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London last week on November 23.

17th century proof from the 1930s

22 November 1999

UK: PHOTOGRAPHIC proof of provenance lends enormous wings to the object concerned, and lot 1 at Phillips’ (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of English and Continental furniture in London on October 12 was just such a case.

For babies or bottles?

22 November 1999

UK: IT MAY have been a mahogany wine cooler, but did its massive proportions and one-time residence in St Alban’s Cathedral suggest that it had formerly been used as a christening bath for babies rather than for beverages?

Silk loom has Mr Babbage analysing the possibilties

15 November 1999

UK: THE LINK between the woven silk portrait illustrated right and the modern world of computing may not be instantly apparent, but this 6in x 4in (16 x 11cm) silk panel, albeit a curiosity rather than a key scientific document, had a successful part to play in the Weinreb Computer Collection, which was sold by Bloomsbury Book Auctions in London on October 28.

From blockhouse to army museum

08 November 1999

UK: THE unknown British soldier who embroidered the crude depiction of his lonely blockhouse on the South African veld almost a century ago, could hardly have expected his work to end up on the hallowed walls of the National Army Museum in Chelsea, having provoked intense competition from international bidders at Bosley’s auction of militaria in Marlow on October 12.

Hermitage collections for Somerset House

08 November 1999

UK: A PERMANENT exhibition space for objects from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is to be part of the continuing development of London’s Somerset House as an arts complex.

Diary’s delights

18 October 1999

UK: LADY Charlotte Schreiber was a celebrated 19th century collector numbering ceramics, enamels and fans amongst her passions.

Mallett see fall in profits after 1998 boom

06 September 1999

UK: BOND Street dealers Mallett have revealed a year on year 18 per cent fall in pre-tax profits for the first six months of 1999 to £2.68m.

DMG buy two fairs in London

29 August 1999

UK: DMG Antiques Fairs has moved into the London market with the acquisition of two well-known North London events, the Wembley and Lee Valley fairs.

Ark to be coveted

23 August 1999

UK: TOP price of Christie’s South Kensington (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of toys and dolls on July 29, 1999 was the £1200 which secured this painted wood Noah’s Ark, complete with numerous carved and painted wood animals, which had been estimated at £600-800.

£50,000 for a graphic display of the art of lacquer

09 August 1999

UK: JAPANESE lacquer is a complex form of decoration requiring the painstaking application of layer upon layer and incorporating different materials to build up the finished pictorial surface.

Stretton's Left in Charge nets £30,000

02 August 1999

UK: A commercially appealing example of Edwardian sporting art at the Leyburn salerooms of Tennants on July 16, this 2ft 61/2in by 231/2in (77.5 x 60cm) oil on canvas Left in Charge by Phillip Eustace Stretton, signed and dated 1904, had been consigned in untouched and original condition from a Harrogate deceased estate.

The Rothschild millions

12 July 1999

UK: LIVING up to its billing as one of the sales of the century The Rothschild Collection netted a hammer total of £52 million at Christie’s in London last week, the highest ever realised for a single-owner collection in Europe.

Extra sparkle for London in June

05 July 1999

UK: June saw London re-affirm its position as one of the world’s two premier venues for selling top quality Impressionist and Modern art with record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

A gilt and carved fauteuil by Georges Jacob

28 June 1999

UK: DISCOVERED in an English collection, this French, gilt and carved fauteuil sold to a private buyer at Christie’s in London on June 23 for £350,000 (plus premium).

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