Art and antiques news from 1999

US: SOTHEBY’S have opened their new-look, custom-built Manhattan headquarters at 1334 York Avenue, New York, adding six new floors above the four which previously housed the auction house.

UK: AS yet there are no signs that game fishing is to become an endangered sport to follow hunting and shooting, not that the market for angling collectables is floundering on the bank of public indifference.

UK: ABOUT 30 years ago a local private lady purchased this 5.2in (13cm) high Charles II flat-lidded silver tankard, pictured right, for £6 at a Cumbrian jumble sale: a generation later, having realised its potential worth, she decided to place the vessel into the hands of the Cumbrian auctioneers Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd’s (10 per cent buyer’s premium) for their sale on September 29.

UK: THE world record auction price for a photograph was broken twice at the Sotheby’s London sale of the Photographic Collection of Marie-Thérèse and André Jammes on October 27.

EU: THE British Art Market Federation wants the European Union to abandon its bid to impose the artists’ resale rights on the UK after member states again failed to vote on the measure on Thursday.

UK: HUGH Scully, Antiques Roadshow presenter since 1981, has signed a five-year deal with internet auction house QXL.com, worth £3m.

SWEDEN at the end of the 19th century was the birthplace of notable inventors of mechanical music who later made their fortunes in America.

THE International art auction market registered a 3.5 per cent increase for the year ending September 1, 1999, according to Art Sales Index figures.

UK: THIS pair of vases, 11in (28cm) high, from the sideboard of a house in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, set a new record for Moorcroft when they appeared at Gorringes Lewes on October 19.

US: PROFITS from the catalogue for Christie’s New York’s October 27 and 28 Marilyn Monroe auction may bring as much as the sale itself.

NETHERLANDS: Van Gogh’s oil landscape A Park in Spring, was the highlight of the inaugural exhibition to mark the opening of Sotheby’s new Netherlands headquarters on October 15.

EIRE: The long-awaited auction of one of Ireland’s foremost collections took place in Dublin on October 14 when Mealy’s, in association with Christie’s, dispersed the contents of 25 Fitzwilliam Street Upper, former residence of the late James Murnaghan, a Justice of the Supreme Court and chairman of the National Gallery of Ireland.

GERMANY: THE German Society of Auctioneers, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer is mounting a legal challenge to prevent Internet auction firms from advertising their sales in Germany as public auctions or sales.

UK: LADY Charlotte Schreiber was a celebrated 19th century collector numbering ceramics, enamels and fans amongst her passions.

UK: Charles Napier Hemy’s seascape Life 4ft 6in x 6ft (1.24m x 1.83m), signed and dated 1913, with reverse inscription, set a record for Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on October 12 when it sold for a double mid-estimate £110,000 plus premium.

FRANCE: AFTER a hearing with the examining magistrate on September 29, leading Paris auctioneer Jacques Tajan has been charged with “suborning a witness and serious breach of trust” over the sale of bronzes by Alberto Giacometti at Drouot in July 1994.

UK: BRIGG auctioneers DDM hit the headlines after selling a household vinyl blind decorated with art work by David Hockney for £11,000 (plus 10 per cent premium).

GERMANY: COMPANIES advertising public auctions or sales on the Internet in Germany are breaking the law and should be stopped, say the German Society of Auctioneers and Fine Arts, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer.

UK: THE late 19th century cranberry glass and gilt metal ‘self-perpetuating table fountain’, pictured right, was the executive desktop toy of its day.

UK & US: A NEW Internet auction house, due to launch simultaneously in the United States and the UK on October 15, aims to woo dealers in high value art and antiques by special incentives and simplifying the process.