News

UK: IT may have been a touch risky for Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) to illustrate a dodo on the front cover of a catalogue for the sale of 19th and 20th century design in Edinburgh on May 21, but thankfully for the auctioneers it proved to be anything but a dead duck when it came to the bidding.

UK: ROBERT Gatling presented his rapid fire gun to the killing fields of the American Civil War – sparking a race between rival generals, statesmen and technicians to develop an automatic weapon with the capacity for achieving the most kills in the shortest time.

FRANCE: THE FRENCH government’s apparent disregard for their art market, reflected by the repeated postponement of the auction reform (see above), was further illustrated by the dramatic last-minute cancellation of the sale of the contents of the former royal château at Randan in the Auvergne.

US: IF UK dealers need a reminder as to why their American counterparts are frantically plundering these shores for fine English examples of their own 18th century copies, then they should look no further than the premium inclusive $336,000 (£213,000) paid by an American private collector for this Queen Anne-style Philadelphia walnut side chair at Freeman’s of Philadelphia on April 16.

UK: THE Art and Antiques Helpline, a seven-day-a-week service which will give access to one of the most comprehensive databases of stolen art and antiques, is to come into operation this summer.

FRANCE: A NEW date of June 10 has been set for the first parliamentary reading of the long-delayed bill reforming French auction system.

UK: A WORCESTER porcelain wine funnel c.1770 – of a particularly large size at 51/2in (14cm) high – printed in underglaze blue with butterflies and sprays of flowers.