Bloomsbury trade from two venues
Bloomsbury Auctions is to continue to trade from its Maddox Street location alongside its new Pall Mall premises.
The saleroom held its first auction at Pall Mall with The Library of the Late Hubert Dingwall on April 27 but other sales will take place at Maddox Street this summer such as its Erotica sale on June 29.
Bloomsbury is still owned by stamp dealership group Stanley Gibbons. Its former stablemates, Dreweatts and Mallett, were sold to Mark Law’s Millicent Holdings after a £2.4m deal was agreed.
Katz sells Gérôme to Fitzwilliam
A recently rediscovered Jean- Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) portrait has been bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum from London dealer Daniel Katz. It is believed Katz bought the large full-length painting of the artist’s brother Claude-Armand Gérôme at a French auction in 2013.
Jean-Léon Gérôme’s portrait of his brother which was sold to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge by dealer Daniel Katz. Image copyright: Daniel Katz.
The Fitzwilliam paid £920,000 and it will now be exhibited in its Impressionist Gallery. The purchase was part of a £2.5m investment by the museum in its bicentenary year in 2016 following some extensive fundraising.
Other new acquisitions include an Admiral Russell-carved gilt wood mirror frame and a pair of pietre dure Roman cabinets.
Rockefeller sale could set record
More than 2000 items from the estate of David Rockefeller (1915-2017) will be offered at Christie’s New York next spring in what could be the most valuable personal art collection yet sold at auction.
Rockefeller, who died in March, was the last surviving grandson of Standard Oil baron John D Rockefeller – the US’s first billionaire.
With his wife Peggy he collected works by artists such as Cezanne and De Kooning.
The items consigned also include English and European furniture, Asian works of art, European ceramics, silver and American decorative arts and furniture.
Jagger portrait bid to £221,000
A striking self portrait by David Jagger (1891-1958) from 1928, demolished a £20,000-30,000 estimate at Bonhams last week.
The work had been bought by the vendor in 1986 and here was sold for £221,000 (plus 25/20/12% buyer’s premium), an auction record for the artist.
It came down to a battle between three phone bidders.
The self portrait by David Jagger which took a record £221,000 at Bonhams.
The 16 x 12in (41 x 31cm) oil on board was one of a small number of chiaroscuro portraits set against a black background made by the artist in his Chelsea studio.
An earlier work by Jagger from 1917, also thought to be a self portrait, titled The Conscientious Objector, initiated a sudden rise in the artist’s prices when it sold for £94,000 at Bonhams in November 2015.
Parmigianino granted export
The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has been given the go-ahead to export a Parmigianino from the UK after no local buyer could be found to match the £24.5m price tag.
The oil on paper Virgin and Child with Saint Mary Magdalen and the Infant Saint John the Baptist, c.1535-40, was bought by the Getty in 2016 having previously been in Sudeley Castle, the Cotswolds home of the Dent-Brocklehurst family.
It had been subject to a temporary export bar on the grounds of the painting’s aesthetic importance and its significance both to the study of Parmigianino’s oeuvre and to the 16th century practice of painting on paper laid on panel.
In Numbers
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The number of newcomers signed up for the next PAD London fair in October 2-8 which the organiser says will “sharpen and broaden” its focus on collectable design.
Gallery seeks funds for May Morris
The William Morris Gallery launches a crowdfunding campaign this week to promote the work of the artist’s daughter, May Morris (1862-1938).
The campaign hopes to raise £15,000 by July 14 to fund the exhibition May Morris: Art & Life, the UK’s first major survey of her work. A private donor through the Art Fund has pledged £5000 if the gallery can raise the initial £10,000.
May Morris’ ‘Maids of Honour’ silk embroidery, 1890s.Copyright: William Morris Gallery, London Borough of Waltham Forest.
May, a member of the British Arts & Crafts movement was a designer, embroiderer, writer and teacher. She also participated in the early Socialist movement and worked to preserve her father’s legacy.
Donations can be made on Art Fund’s Art Happens site.
Twin initiatives from LAPADA
LAPADA, the Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, has launched a reference platform for members on its website.
The Knowledge Bank offers advice, information and documentation on a number of legal and regulation issues.
It is one of two initiatives the organisation launched last week, the other is a series of panel discussions on buying antiques staged for clients of investment company Killik & Co, the new sponsor of the September LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair.
The first event, History & Heritage: Collecting Antique Jewellery, was attended by 75 would-be buyers.
Director Mieka Sywak said that all Killik & Co clients will receive invitations to the fair and that the series of events is aimed to familiarise them with the art and antiques trade before the September fair.
Some of the 75 clients of Killik & Co who attended LAPADA's History & Heritage: Collecting Antique Jewellery seminar last week.
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1 BADA president Victoria Borwick loses Kensington seat after recount
2 A £10 car boot sale diamond ring sells for more than half a million pounds
3 Christie’s sale of Rockefeller estate set to become the most valuable collection ever auctioned
4 Stanley Gibbons Group receives approach from private equity firm
5 Michael Gove ‘may consider a pledge for total ivory ban’
