Sculpture

SCULPTURE, which accounted for a quarter of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, fared better than the pictures, with two thirds of the 18 lots finding a taker, although Le Créateur, a small Rodin bronze that began proceedings, fell stone dead – bought in at €15,000 against an estimate of €20,000-30,000.

EIGHT market-fresh female bronzes by Aristide Maillol, ranging in height from 8-12in (20-30cm) and designed between 1896 and 1905, surfaced in the Binoche (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom on July 2.

SOME steady selling of material which has been hard to shift of late provided some encouragement for the trade generally at Lawrences of Bletchingley's (12.5 buyer's premium) July 20-22 sale and among the 2000 lots – which totalled nearly £200,000 – there were enough of those quirky offerings which make provincial British auctions the fascinating events they can be.

WEST Country foodies will no doubt be aware that the two-star Michelin chef John Burton Race and his family (they of French Leave fame) have recently moved to Devon to take over the famous Carved Angel restaurant in Dartmouth from Joyce Molyneux. Burton Race is planning a refurbishment and will rename the restaurant the New Angel in reference to its new mascot, a glass sculpture of an angel with a sword commissioned from the nearby Dartington factory.

THE first victory for a new art recovery company, a statue stolen from one of Yorkshire’s finest stately homes almost two years ago has been recovered in Chicago.

AFTER the first couple of days, all nine dealers participating in London Sculpture Week (which ended on June 18) reported a great deal of interest in their exhibitions with old clients joined by museum people and, most importantly, new customers.

IN one of the most crowded week’s in London’s arts and antiques calendar, the Grosvenor House and Olympia fairs are still in full swing. Some may ask if we need more in the way of dealers’ selling exhibitions but they would get a dusty reply from the trade.

BONHAMS Chester hosted a 484-lot collectable ceramics and applied arts sale on April 27.

THE catalogue at Hampton and Littlewood’s (15% buyer's premium) April 28-29 sale may have been a model of its kind but even Homer nods… and Mr Hampton did so while “late-night cataloguing” this sentimental little group, right.

MAYFAIR antiquities dealer Rupert Wace is mounting possibly the most captivating June selling exhibition when, as one of the participants of the first London Sculpture Week, he presents Pharaoh’s Creatures: Animals from Ancient Egypt, at 14 Old Bond Street, London W1.

ALTHOUGH many of the items on offer by the nine dealers taking part in London Sculpture Week (June 10-18) are antique, with some dating back more than 5000 years, there will be a few contemporary pieces.

Right: among the highlights of the three-day on-the-premises house sale conducted by Woolley & Wallis at Ashley Manor, near Stockbridge, Hampshire from May 18-20 was this 11 1/2in (29cm) high bronze cast of a winsome puppy by Dame Elizabeth Frink (1930-1993).

SIX lots from Bonhams' (17.5/10% buyer's premium) March 22-24 sale at The Old Rectory, Banningham will be making their way back whence they came, National Trust curators having identified them (Bonhams had only spotted one) as having been bought by the Rev. Hall & Son at the 1951 contents sale of Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk. The house now belongs to the Trust which rescued it from demolition.

ON Thursday March 18 thieves broke into the Oxfordshire home of ex-jockey and racehorse trainer Stan Mellor and stole silver and works of art.

NONE of the February auctions in Brussels were timed to coincide with the Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique (Belgian Antique Dealers’ Fair), staged from February 6-15, perhaps because this was the first year that the new-look fair had attracted such international attention.

NINE prominent London specialist dealers have joined forces to launch London Sculpture Week this June. In recent years a number of such initiatives have been launched successfully to focus attention on an area of expertise in the capital. With increasing interest in sculpture it was thought it was time to highlight London’s considerable credentials in this field.

Five early 18th century ivory relief portraits by celebrated carver David Le Marchand stolen from the Art Gallery of Ontario on January 17 have been recovered.

Cheffins of Cambridge are celebrating what must rank as one of the most dramatic – and certainly one of the highest – prices ever recorded in the UK provinces after their February 11-12 sale that included a pair of white marble seated figures by Sir Henry Cheere (1703-81).

THE Burlington Magazine have extra reason to celebrate their centenary this month as they unveil the rediscovery of a lost work by Benvenuto Cellini. The 19in (48cm) bronze statuette of a satyr has been identified during the preparation of a catalogue raisonné of sculpture in the Royal Collection.

ST JAMES’S sculpture dealer Robert Bowman will be on duty at Maastricht again this year, and at the top fair he will be showing the top names of 19th and 20th century bronzes, such as Rodin and Degas.