Art and antiques news from 2005

Sales at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris rose by 15 per cent to €230m (£153m) in the first half of 2005.

A much-publicised decision to devalue their stock by £10m, is the headline figure of the six-monthly accounts published by Partridge Fine Arts.

The well-known Worcestershire firm Andrew Grant are expected to close their fine art auction department.

Charles Hanson, formerly of Wintertons, launches his own auction business next month.

MALLETT, one of Bond Street’s most famous names, are to expand their New York branch, with work hopefully starting in November.

At first glance there’s nothing very exciting at all about this Prattware pot lid.

Lincolnshire auctioneers Golding Young established a new house record on August 10 when they sold this superb mahogany breakfront side cabinet right for £135,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium).

INITIAL Government responses to recommendations made during the consultation on droit de suite are encouraging for the art market.

A DECADE after the Thurn und Taxis and Baden Baden sales in the 1990s, Sotheby’s are once again decamping to a German castle to stage another mammoth aristocratic auction.

One of Manhattan’s best-known antique centres, The Showplace, is expanding its 30,000 square ft premises with the addition of a new floor that will open in early October.

Despite a substantial fall in total sales, increases in buyer’s premium and vendor’s commission margins helped Sotheby’s post record revenues for the second quarter of 2005.

Wintertons are moving out of the Lichfield Auction Centre as part of a plan to join their property and livestock divisions under one roof in a new auction centre.

Bloomsbury Auctions report that their new departments have helped them achieve a 60 per cent rise in turnover year on year for the first half of 2005.

Personnel changes are afoot in the silver departments of two of London’s major auction houses.

The Scottish Executive is considering introducing a licensing scheme for the trade in non-domestic knives and banning the sale of swords. Both measures could impact heavily on the antique arms market.

Strengthening their position as Ireland’s largest auction house, James Adam & Sons have been assigned the fine art business of major Dublin rival and property giant Hamilton Osborne King.

The latest round of golf sales held up in Scotland threw up a now-familiar pattern of mixed results.

“SELLING more lots but for less overall money” was the verdict of Lawrences valuer Howard Page after more than 2700 lots went under the hammer at the Surrey auctioneers’ marathon June event.

THE Saturday Portobello antiques market will not be disrupted by water board works as feared.

A TRAVELLING exhibition is to be organised for the unique Cassel silver collection thanks to major grants from the Lottery and the National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund).