Former CSK expert now at The Pedestal
Simon Green, former head of sale for early oak furniture, tapestries, objects, sculpture and ceramics at Christie’s South Kensington, is now working with The Pedestal auction house as a consultant.
The November 21 Fine Furniture and Objects sale will have early oak and carpets lots added to the usual items on offer. It takes place at Moor Park Mansion, a Grade I listed Palladian house near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire and today part of the Moor Park Golf Club.
Simon Green, who is now working with The Pedestal auction house as a consultant.
The Pedestal was launched last year by Sally Stratton and Guy Savill, who worked together in the furniture department at Bonhams since the early 1990s, and their first auction as The Pedestal was on October 18, 2016.
The final auction at CSK took place on July 19 with a 466-lot ‘Interiors’ sale rounding off the saleroom’s 42-year history.
Last-known Titanic letter sets record
The last-known letter written on the Titanic by a victim before it sank in the Atlantic in 1912 has set an auction record for a letter from the doomed ship.
It was written on April 13 – the day before the huge ship hit an iceberg.
Carrying an estimate of £60,000-80,000, the letter was auctioned at Titanic memorabilia specialists Henry Aldridge & Son on October 22 and sold at a hammer price of £100,000 to a British buyer over the phone.
A letter from a Titanic survivor which sold in 2014 for a hammer price of £101,000 held the record for the sale of a letter from the ship.
However, including buyer’s premium and fees, the letter auctioned this month sold for a total of £126,000, above the premium-inclusive £119,000 set in 2014.
Written by an American businessman passenger, Oscar Holverson, it is the only known letter on headed Titanic notepaper to have gone into the Atlantic and survived despite the death of its author.
His body was recovered and, inside a pocket book, the letter was found bearing the stains of the sea water and the water mark of the White Star shipping line.
The letter eventually made its way back to his mother.
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The most clicked-on stories for week October 19-25 on antiquestradegazette.com
1 Chinese vase estimated at £1.5m-2m fails to sell at Glasgow auction
2 Hungarian silver cup brings strong contest at SJ Phillips sale
3 Last-minute consignment to Chichester auctioneer is rare William III gold coin
4 Major Japanese arms and armour collection offered in Cheltenham auction
5 Terracotta panels with biblical scenes sell to York church
Chinese scroll hits an Australian high
Chinese scroll by Fu Baoshi (1904-65) – sold for a hammer price of Aus$2.6m (£1.5m) at Bonhams’ Sydney sale.
A rare Chinese scroll by artist Fu Baoshi (1904-65) has made an auction record for Bonhams in Australia.
The ink-on-paper hanging scroll called Landscape sold for a hammer price of Aus$2.6m (£1.5m) at the Sydney sale on October 25.
Bonhams said the price for the scroll, which had been estimated at just Aus$5000-8000, makes it the most expensive Asian artwork sold in Australia.
It was part of a 40-strong collection of Chinese paintings amassed by a Sydney and Singapore-based family during the 1960s from artists and dealers across Hong Kong and London.
It had remained in Singapore and had not been seen in public for nearly 50 years. The owner died earlier this year and the collection was offered at Bonhams’ Asian Art sale.
The Paul Newman Rolex racing ahead
A Rolex once owned by actor Paul Newman has set an auction record at Phillips in New York.
The Rolex ‘Paul Newman’ Cosmograph Daytona sold at a hammer price of $15.5m, and the premium-inclusive $17.8m (£13.6m) is an auction record for a wristwatch.
It was bought for Newman by his wife, Joanne Woodward, around the time he filmed Winning, a 1969 movie where he played the racing-car driver Frank Capua. The role sparked Newman’s interest in racing, much to Woodward’s dismay, and this watch is engraved Drive Carefully Me.
The Rolex once owned by Paul Newman which sold in New York for a wristwatch auction record.
Newman gave it to James Cox, a former boyfriend of his daughter Nell in the 1980s. Cox has now sold the watch and a portion of proceeds from the sale will go to the Nell Newman Foundation.
The watch sold at Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo’s inaugural New York auction. This sale, called Winning Icons, attracted 700 bidders from 43 countries for the 49 lots which sold for a premium-inclusive total of $28.8m.
Holy appropriate church purchase
A pair of terracotta panels sold to a church in York during Harrogate’s newly rebranded Northern Antiques Fair (October 19-22).
The pair of terracotta panels depict scenes from the life of Christ and are thought to be Italian from the first half of the 19th century.
The terracotta panels sold at the Northern Antiques Fair to a York church.
They were ticketed at £2400 on the stand of Something Different of Somerset when they caught the eye of Rev Eric Robinson. “We have the perfect place for them in our St Nicholas Chapel,” said Robinson, who bought the panels for the Priory Church of the Holy Trinity in Micklegate. “Hopefully we can have them up in time for Advent.”
Something Different was among the more than 30 dealers in attendance at the fair.
In Numbers
10
The number of people allowed at one time in London to view Salvator Mundi, the Leonardo Da Vinci painting to be offered at $100m. It was on show at Christie’s in King Street between October 24-26. Demand led to queues around the block. The painting will now be on view in New York ahead of its auction on November 15.
