Art and antiques news from 2001

Horology topped the July 24-25 519-lot sale at the Bournemouth rooms of House & Son (15% buyer’s premium) when an 18th century longcase, being sold on the behalf of a local storage company where it had been left uncollected for years, was a specialist target.

Brown furniture may not be at a premium at present but walnut is still capable of springing some surprises, as was seen at the Taunton sale held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt (15% buyer’s premium) on July 26 and the July 21 sale held by Altrincham auctioneers Patrick Cheyne (12% buyer’s premium).

The annual Hong-Kong coin sale presided over by Baldwin-Ma-Gillio-Monetarium is always a big draw. This one, number 33, including the semi-annual sales at Singapore, is scheduled for August 30.

Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals. The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, by Manual Keene, published by the British Museum ISBN 0500976082. £18.95 pb.

A MIX of modest standard furniture and collectable ceramics hardly seemed a formula for success in mid-summer but the mix at Fellows (buyer’s premium 15%) attracted a full house at Birmingham on July 10.

A DISPUTE over rent and refurbishment could spell the end of ewolfs.com, the Ohio-based online auction house, who have shed 20 of their 24 staff and shut down temporarily in the crisis.

ICOLLECTOR intend to bring in more revenue by introducing a subscription rate of around £40 a month for their Auction Search service and extending banner advertising on their Website.

August may be an unlikely month to find unusual Asian entries in London’s salerooms, but Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) regular Asian Decorative Arts sale, August 16, threw up two quirky 19th century Chinese blue and white bottle vases and covers, 121/4in (31cm) high, made for the Tibetan market.

UK: CUTTING EDGE is the title of a major cutlery exhibition opening at Fairfax House in Castlegate, York, on September 1. The display, which will remain on show until December 30, before moving to the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield and then, in March next year, the Geffrye Museum in London, covers “5000 years of man and knife”.

This pair of Chinese porcelain vases had been salvaged from a house owned by a religious cult. No, not the Falun Gong, but the Panacea Society, a ‘charity’ founded in Bedford after the First World War who believed that Christ would make his second coming to the town of the eponymous van.

USA: Christie’s New York are relocating and restructuring a number of their departments in preparation for the assimilation of Christie’s East into the company’s Rockefeller headquarters.

A continued demand for good quality Georgian and early Victorian jewellery at Phillips (15/10% buyer’s premium), Bayswater, 415-lot antique and modern jewellery auction, August 7, saw this gem set heart-shaped locket pendant, c.1830, steal the top slot.

AS Sotheby’s announced their plans for Billingshurst, they also revealed disappointing worldwide results for the second quarter of the year that showed profits halved ($14.3m compared to $30m for 2000). They predicted a loss for the year as a whole.

CHRISTIE’S kept ahead of Sotheby’s in worldwide sales, recording a total of £681m ($974m) for the first six months compared to Sotheby’s £659m ($942.9m) – a gap of three per cent.

US-based Ableauctions have made an offer to acquire fellow online auctions firm ICollector in a share swap deal that values ICollector at £9.8m ($13.9m).

UK: Good stock furniture usually provides the highlights at these Michael J. Bowman Devon rooms but there was little of real quality among the 511 lots in July and, reflecting current caution among trade buyers, it was left to classics in other sections to produce the better results.

MEMORIES of the Raj were the selling point at the collectors’ sale held at Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium) on July 5 which included pieces acquired by Lord William Hailey during his Governorship of the Punjab during the 1920s.

THE Law Fine Art sale at Southington House, a country house near Overton, Hampshire, had everything you might expect to find in a home lived in by one family for over a century.

Ebony furniture is not to everyone’s taste, but a fished-out brown furniture market and a couple of colonial sleepers in the regional salerooms recently has prompted speculation that the black stuff could be due for a revival.

UK: SOTHEBY’S have announced their intention to reorganise their Summers Place, Billingshurst, West Sussex operation to “take advantage of the new Olympia saleroom”. The restructure involves ending all general sales at the end of November and specialising in garden statuary, in which the rooms have established a leading reputation, and modern and vintage sporting guns and rifles.