London

West London‘s Chiswick Auctions is to open a new showroom in South Kensington manned by at least eight former Christie’s staff.

A pair of lions from the funerary monument of Charles V of France was the toast of Christie’s Exceptional sale in London on July 6.

A new auction house is to open in London hoping to find a gap in the market for cameras, scientific and medical instruments.

The latest Old Master sales in London put in a solid performance with the overall total from last week’s auction series running at £115m (including premium) with one day sale still to take place at the time of going to press.

A set of four hunting scenes by John Nost Sartorius (1759-1828) is being offered on the art market for the first time at Rountree Tryon Galleries in Mayfair.

Bonhams Knightsbridge is keen to assert its place in London’s evolving auction scene, managing director Jon Baddeley tells ATG.

“It is something, at the age of 31, to be among the most discussed, most successful, most promising, most admired and most hated British artists.” So wrote the critic Charles Lewis Hind about the war artist CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) in 1920.

A moment of good old-fashioned saleroom drama emerged at Christie’s antiquities sale on July 5 when an Etruscan bronze mirror, estimated at £10,000-15,000, sold at £390,000 (plus 25/20/12% buyer’s premium). The buyer was a European institution.

Sold for £55,000 by Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 14 was a newly discovered and very decorative portolan chart on vellum of the Mediterranean.