News

A continued demand for good quality Georgian and early Victorian jewellery at Phillips (15/10% buyer’s premium), Bayswater, 415-lot antique and modern jewellery auction, August 7, saw this gem set heart-shaped locket pendant, c.1830, steal the top slot.

This pair of Chinese porcelain vases had been salvaged from a house owned by a religious cult. No, not the Falun Gong, but the Panacea Society, a ‘charity’ founded in Bedford after the First World War who believed that Christ would make his second coming to the town of the eponymous van.

USA: Christie’s New York are relocating and restructuring a number of their departments in preparation for the assimilation of Christie’s East into the company’s Rockefeller headquarters.

UK: CUTTING EDGE is the title of a major cutlery exhibition opening at Fairfax House in Castlegate, York, on September 1. The display, which will remain on show until December 30, before moving to the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield and then, in March next year, the Geffrye Museum in London, covers “5000 years of man and knife”.

August may be an unlikely month to find unusual Asian entries in London’s salerooms, but Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) regular Asian Decorative Arts sale, August 16, threw up two quirky 19th century Chinese blue and white bottle vases and covers, 121/4in (31cm) high, made for the Tibetan market.

AS Sotheby’s announced their plans for Billingshurst, they also revealed disappointing worldwide results for the second quarter of the year that showed profits halved ($14.3m compared to $30m for 2000). They predicted a loss for the year as a whole.

CHRISTIE’S kept ahead of Sotheby’s in worldwide sales, recording a total of £681m ($974m) for the first six months compared to Sotheby’s £659m ($942.9m) – a gap of three per cent.