Art and antiques news from 2002

Understandably, the Russians left this one behind when they liberated the Reichstag in 1945, but a Tommy NCO with a sense of humour decided to rescue this beleaguered portrait of the First World War German Field Marshall and Weimar president Paul von Hindenburg, right, from the ruins and take him back to the West Country.

THE first quality fair of 2003 is one of Robert Bailey’s strongest events, the 11th Cheshire New Year Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire. It runs from January 3 to 5.

Just where were those bears made? The familiar stands, seats and other furnishings fashioned as realistically carved bears, usually from limewood, have traditionally been attributed to the Black Forest region of West Germany but recent researches suggest that Switzerland is a more likely source.

Those Entrusted with Arms by Frederick Wilkinson, published by Greenhill Books/Royal Armouries ISBN 1853675237 £19.95 hb

Ceramics, Ethics & Scandal, by Rosalie Wise Sharp, published by RWD Books, Toronto, Canada and distributed by the Antique Collectors’ Club. ISBN 0973141700 £50 hb

A combination of vendors reluctant to consign the best quality goods and cautious bidding from the trade created a fairly low-key atmosphere at London’s traditional pre-Christmas round of Old Master picture sales.

COSTAS Kleanthous, pictured right, has been appointed a director of the board of LAPADA, the UK’s largest professional art and antique dealers’ association.

WHILE the Irish picture market continues to boom, the Scottish market showed serious jitters at Bonhams Edinburgh (17.5% buyer’s premium) on the evening of December 5.

LOUISE MacBain, chief executive and leading financial backer of Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, has stepped down from her post with the company.

LARS Tharp officially declared Rupert Toovey’s huge new Sussex saleroom open at last week’s public viewing. Mr Tharp, who is a consultant expert to the auctioneers, echoed Mr Toovey’s own sentiments that his firm’s commitment to such a large undertaking showed how much confidence they had in the future of provincial auctioneering.

HOW can coins being sold on the rostrum in New York be sitting safely locked up in London and elsewhere at the same time? That is the conundrum facing the coins and medals world following the publication of a catalogue and results from a sale organised in New York by Riccardo Paolucci, a Yorkshire-based Italian dealer.

It must be the dream insurance policy: compensation for loss and the return of the goods stolen. But for security giant Chubb, it was a claim too far when wealthy art lover Michael Clarke-Jervoise demanded he be handed back a 17th century Dutch masterpiece for which they had earlier paid him £125,000 in compensation.

Coming up on December 11, 12 and 13 is Rupert Toovey & Co’s Sale of Antiques, Fine Art & Collectors’ Items, which will be the inaugural sale at their new Spring Gardens salerooms in Washington, West Sussex.

ONE of the most bizarre and unexpected results at Tennants’ sale in North Yorkshire on 21-22 December involved a collection of more than 200 19th century marbles, a selection of which are shown right.

Pint-sized dealers might be interested in getting hold of this immaculate little suit in black wool and cream cotton, measuring just 2ft 1in (63cm) from collar to trouser bottom, which is being offered by Bonhams in Knowle on December 11.

Thanks to the combination of sporting subject matter and extremely slick technique, Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) continues to be one of the few early 20th century British painters to command a truly international following among the world’s richest private collectors.

Luxury Goods from India: The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, written by Amin Jaffer, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773819 £30hb

The Beano and Dandy were the first British comics to be published entirely in colour when they appeared within months of each other in 1938. With a cover price of two old pennies, this first edition Beano achieved the highest price ever paid for a British comic when bidding closed at Comic Book Postal Auctions in London last week.

ONE of the more expensive lots in this Cumbrian sale at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf on 6 November was an 1881 [Philadelphia] limited edition of the Complete Poems and Prose of Walt Whitman. An ex-library copy in well worn cloth and bearing a typescript note that it was bought “...at the sale of the library of the late Lord Rosebery”, it made £920. Some copies are signed, but the catalogue referred only to a manuscript limitation statement.

Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life, by Hugh Belsey, published by Prestel. ISBN 379132784 £14.95hb