News

In a Bloomsbury Book Auctions sale reported earlier (Antiques Trade Gazette No. 1485, April 21, 2001) I mentioned a bid of £2800 on a 1930 (German text) Cranach Press edition of Hamlet, but at Sotheby’s on April 5, as part of the John Gielgud Collection, a copy of the English text version made very much more than that.

UK: SMALLER than usual at 412 lots – the Sussex floods earlier in the year having distracted potential vendors – the March sale at Henry Adams’ Chichester rooms was nevertheless strong on quality, which is what buyers want.

UK: NINETEENTH century genre paintings with strong narrative and moralising elements have not been the strongest performers at auction in recent years.

UK: A CHANNEL Islands collection formed by Sir Martin Le Quesne occupied the first 108 lots of the catalogue issued by Bloomsbury Book Auctions for their March 15 sale.

There was the familiar wide mix and flash of quality at this Dales auctioneers’ weekly sale, where the top price came from a piece over the Pennines – an 18th century yew wood dresser base that had originally graced a pub in Blackpool.

UK: RESOURCEFULNESS is a characteristic of the successful dealer, and there are occasions where profit margins can be improved by, say, slipping an extra leaf into a dining table, or turning a dressing table into one of those rare kidney-shaped desks.

EIRE: WITH the traditional Irish sales due in London next month, many an eye was on the Dublin sale held by James Adams (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on March 28 to see how pictures were selling in their native land.