London

DEALERS stalling at Bermondsey Market have voiced further opposition to plans to redevelop the site as part of a £19m urban regeneration project.

Retrouvius of Kensal Green, London, is an architectural reclamation and design partnership founded in 1993 by Adam Hills and Maria Speake, both of whom had previously studied architecture at Glasgow School of Art.

Dealers often complain about the way that private bidders get over-excited at auctions and pay ridiculously inflated prices they wouldn’t dream of giving in a gallery. But for once it looks - or rather looked – as if a major player in the trade had suffered a serious attack of auction fever following Jermyn Street agent Guy Morrison’s terse admission that he was now the happy owner of £9.4m Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) portrait.

Light sculpture is what noted potter Margaret O’Rorke calls her distinctive and novel work, which is on exhibition until December 21 at Galerie Besson, 15 Royal Arcade off Old Bond Street, London W1.

This codified sequence of columns, dots and captions is what the superstitious folk of 16th century Italy consulted with more zealotry than a tabloid-reading lottery pundit in search of Mystic Meg.

Chinese sales at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) can always be relied on to produce some good prices during Asia week. While the morning works of art session in their Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale, November 8, was quiet, business picked up in the afternoon for the ceramics section.

This 17th century wrought iron Armada chest had stood unopened in the attic of an English country house for 180 years until it was finally unsealed earlier this year and found to contain a mass of papers relating to Dr William Harvey and his brother Eliab which had been deposited there by his descendants in 1821.

The long-awaited opening of the new British Galleries at the V&A last week has restored to the museum and its visitors many of its finest and best loved exhibits in an appropriate yet innovative environment.

Manchester City Art Gallery, the underbidder at auction for the lantern which was the original model for Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World, have secured the piece after all. The gallery underbid the lantern, pictured right, when it was sold to a private collector for £46,000 (plus 15% buyer’s premium) on November 1 at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Of greater general interest was Baldwin’s sale of Ancient and Modern coins that occupied October 9. There were 1403 lots looking for a new owner. This included the 322 lots devoted to the working library of the late Patrick Finn.

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.

Just like the following week’s 20th Century Italian sales, Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) October 18 inaugural theme sale exclusively devoted to Greek art notched up selling rates that belied the pessimism prevailing in so many other sectors of the market.

There were two horological offerings last month at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium). The auctioneers kicked off on October 3 with a mid-range clocks and barometer selection then followed it up on the 10th with a grander offering styled as Important Watches.