Art and antiques news from 1999

...but it's still bad for you US: HOT news from health-conscious America. After years of campaigning from pro-winers, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has agreed to allow the words DO CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF DRINKING WINE to be added to the back label, as well as the statutory health warning. So now it’s official. Not only is wine bad for you, but it’s good for you as well.

UK: FOR the moment at least the great international wine auctioneering machine grinds on serenely enough with lottage selling rates routinely at levels of 90 per cent or better.

UK: TWO new major records in the past ten days are proof positive that provincial salerooms can still attract the very best quality amid all the talk of availability declining.

UK: IT HAD been forged as ecclesiastical strongchests for church treasure in medieval Europe and wrought in the form of bedsteads in 17th century Italian villas, but it was only with the rise of industrial manufacture and the growth of the middle-classes in the 19th century that iron became a commonplace element in the gardens, and then the houses of the British gentry.

UK: PRINCIPAL FOCUS of attention at this auction was the range of private press, limited edition and other modern illustrated books on offer.

UK: FURNITURE from the East Coast of Africa is hardly common currency within the Cotswolds antiques trade but it was given unusual prominence last month with the appearance of this substantial 18th century hardwood chest with brass studwork decoration at the Gloucestershire rooms of Wotton Auction Rooms on March 23-24.

UK: UNUSUAL collectables on the first day and standard furnishings on the second at this 495-lot Essex dispersal.

UK: AS two of the wealthiest and most densely populated of the Southern Counties – housing large communities of former expats, retired professionals and alpha-class commuters – it is hardly surprising that West and East Sussex have a multitude of salerooms.

UK: IS this Gothic revival red walnut foldover card table, left, another rediscovered work by the great William Burges?

UK: A SMART pair of George III coasters, 61/4in (16cm) diameter – appealing for their wirework gallery and turned hardwood bases centred by (possibly later) crested central roundels – was unearthed by George Kidner auctioneers during a house clearance, neglected and black with dirt.

Works of Art at Sotheby's South

UK: SOTHEBY’S are to re-brand their Sussex operation – renaming the Billingshurst saleroom and introducing a number of significant changes to the current saleroom portfolio.

UK: THE Christie’s South Kensington sale of March 19 fielded no fewer than three copies of the book that was the main source of western knowledge of Japan in the 18th century, the two-volume History of Japan... written by Englebert Kaempfer.

UK: THIS Victorian gilt overmantel mirror, right, was the unexpected highlight of Plymouth Auction Rooms (buyer’s premium 10 per cent) February 24.

SWITZERLAND: NOWADAYS the trade makes much of its living out of putting pictures through the salerooms, but there can be few more spectacular profits in recent months than the £200,000 St James’s dealer David Mason made out of this Albert Anker (1831-1910) oil, right, Strickendes Mädchen which sold for SFr550,000 (£239,130) at Christie’s Zurich (15/13/7.5 per cent buyer’s premium) on March 23.

Sales in Switzerland A SCARCE first edition, in a ‘curious’ binding, of the Marquis de Sade’s Justine which proved a surprise star turn of a Galerie Koller auction held in Zurich on February 8, selling for a premium inclusive SFr51,168 (£22,745), was illustrated and described in an earlier issue of the Antiques Trade Gazette, but illustrated and described here are a few more of the highlights.

UK: SIGNED cabinet photographs of Oscar and Constance Wilde flank one of their younger son, Vivian, which has been inscribed and dated 1891 to the reverse – although the well known portrait of Oscar is known to date from 1889.

UK: ROBERT Garrard is a heavyweight in the Victorian silver market, renown for large and imposing tablewares produced for the great and the good of mid-late 19th century society. And a fine example of the Garrard output was on offer at the Bournemouth Auction Galleries in March.

UK: NINETEENTH century brown carcase furniture of country house proportions and impeccable provenance attracted the higher prices at this monthly sale in the Cotswolds.

Georgian grandeur helps break the £1m barrier UK: THE reign of George III is a popular collecting theme and so it is worthwhile reporting on Spink’s (10 per cent buyer’s premium) specialist sale of the Herman Selig collection on March 2.