Art and antiques news from 2010

WORCESTERSHIRE auctioneer Philip Serrell has been asked to sell, at short notice, Cotswolds School furniture from the dormitories of Hazelrigg Hall, now part of Loughborough University.

DUBLIN auctioneers Adam’s are to open a new office in Northern Ireland – and take over the running of one of the province’s leading commercial galleries.

SIGNS of recovery at the top end of the art market were seen again as greater levels of international bidding emerged at the latest contemporary art auction series in London.

THE Berkeley Square Art & Antiques Fair announced last October by Paris-based Patrick Perrin and London-based Stéphane Custot is now no longer taking place this June.

FOLLOWING the severe winter weather that has struck the East Coast of the US, Freemans of Philadelphia chose to postpone for a week the sale of the Lehman Brothers Collection Part II.

IT is in the nature of display cabinets not to stand out. By definition they are unobtrusive vehicles intended to take a back seat to their contents.

Faced with the biggest crisis in its history, the Hôtel Drouot, the central Paris auction venue, has announced sweeping changes to how it is run.

John Ward, head of Sotheby’s New York silver department, said it was the piece of American silver that had it all: “Large size, great condition, beautiful design by an idiosyncratic maker, fresh provenance, and a great story.”

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

A SURVEY of members by the British Antique Dealers Association has found that late payments as a result of the recession are causing a significant number of them cash-flow problems.

INTERNATIONAL Coin Exchange, a new firm of Dublin-based auctioneers, will hold their first sale on February 19.

THE luxury goods fair Masterpiece London has been granted planning permission for an inaugural event at the former Chelsea Barracks from June 24 to 29.

If the price paid for Alberto Giacometti's (1901-1966) sculpture L'Homme qui Marche I is anything to go by, then the art market is now striding out of recession. Selling for £58m (plus premium) at Sotheby's evening sale on February 3, it became the most expensive object ever sold at auction.

SERIOUS levels of demand emerged for works at the very top end of the art market as this month’s flagship Impressionist and Modern art auction series raised a combined hammer total of £225.8m, massively up on the £108.8m for the equivalent series last year.

A GROUP of Portobello Road dealers are to lobby the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea following the loss of a prominent antiques arcade to a highstreet retailer.

MAJOR American museums played an active role as both buyers and sellers in the latest Old Master sales in New York.

CHRISTIE’S have announced a 24 per cent year-on-year fall in sales for 2009 to £2.1bn.

A PAIR of silver-gilt waiters made by William Burwash for William Beckford, “the wealthiest commoner in England” who built the lavish Gothic Revival Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, sold for £36,000 at auction last week.

BLOOMSBURY Auctions and Dreweatts have announced an alliance with Hermann Historica, the German specialist auctioneers in arms, armour and militaria.