Art and antiques news from 2004

SOME of the 16 shows which comprise the traditional autumn season of selling exhibitions held by the Cotswold Antiques Dealers’ Association have already been covered in this column but here are a few more to whet the appetite.

CHRISTIE'S South Kensington are to launch a new sales programme next year that will turn them into a seven-days-a-week operation.

POLICE have alerted dealers across Ireland to a cache of antiques stolen in a weekend raid at the home of Lord Henry Mountcharles on his Slane Castle estate in County Meath.

RIGHT: London auctioneers Spink’s pre-sale billing of this Anglo Saxon gold penny as ”the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years” gained tangible endorsement last week when they sold it for £200,000 – a new record for an English coin.

GRAHAM Smith of Graham Smith Antiques in Jesmond, Newcastle has joined LAPADA’s board of directors. He started his own business in 1999 after 27 years working with Owen Humble Antiques.

THE National Maritime Museum has purchased two prints from a London dealer following its appeal in the Antiques Trade Gazette for information about two missing William Hodges paintings.

THIS unusual metamorphic George III mahogany dressing table, right, goes under the Charterhouse gavel on Friday October 15.

THE focus of the furniture trade’s attention in Bamfords' (15% buyer's premium) 1025-lot Derbyshire outing on September 8 was a c.1835 mahogany, triple-pedestal dining table with a top formed from two D-sections and a central Pembroke drop leaf.

FURNITURE in Bonhams' (17.5/10% buyer's premium) Par sale on September 2 was given a considerable boost by a contingent of Irish dealers who between them secured around 20 of the more standard entries in the 104-lot section.

DISPERSING 200 mixed-quality clocks may seem a daunting prospect for some provincial auctioneers, but, by selling the Staffordshire collection in bite-size chunks through their general, oak and country and fine auctions, Richard Winterton (15% buyer's premium) managed to get away almost all entries during the summer months.

SOME provincial auctioneers batten down the hatches during August, but for Keys (10% buyer's premium) in Norfolk it was a particularly busy month with two antique sales, a collectors’ auction and a picture outing.

PROVINICIAL auctioneers may no longer be able to bank on a solid furniture take-up to keep business ticking over (the 162-lot furniture section at Bruton Knowles (15% buyer's premium) on September 16 fielded the lion’s share of casualties), but at least they can rely on unusual, commercial or quality entries still selling at a premium.

AS is often the case at regular provincial auctions these days, proceedings at Abbotts Auction Rooms' (12% buyer's premium) otherwise fairly routine, 438-lot September 8 sale were enlivened by a couple of novel entries.

SWALLOW Fairs say they will announce their dates for next year’s International Antiques and Collectors’ Fair at RAF Swinderby this Thursday.

THE sale of a Shakespeare First Folio is a rare event, but the sale of a copy that emerged out of nowhere is something that comes around only once in a generation.

THE chronicles of Captain Cook and his perils on the high seas of the South Pacific, possess a mixture of action, adventure, discovery, science and romance that is enough to capture the most hardened imagination.

EXCAVATION work due to start shortly on archaeological remains, as part of the Bermondsey redevelopment project, will not interfere with the New Caledonian Antiques Market.

Given the Potteries location, it is hardly surprising that Royal Doulton and Beswick have long provided Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer's premium) with their bread-and-butter business as well as many top lots. The first day of their quarterly fine sales is always devoted to these staples, predominantly sourced from private vendors living within a 50-mile radius of the Hanley rooms.

BEING part of a large company such as The Fine Art Auction Group has its benefits when it comes to sourcing consignments and sharing expertise, but, on a day-to-day basis, it does not always make the specialist’s life any easier when it comes to spotting sleepers.

When it comes to pulling in buyers, the country house sale held on the premises is a hard format hard to beat – unless, of course, you can combine the attraction with a titled provenance.