News

“There was a certain amount of watching. People were there to see what was happening, which was why it was slightly less active than last year, particularly for the nice, but less fashionable 19th century watercolours.”

Two weeks after Christie’s and Bonhams’ Knightsbridge sales, Bonhams’ (15/10% buyer’s premium) offered a small 110-lot selection of antiquities along with a dozen lots of icons in their Bond Street rooms on November 27.

While provincial auctions often struggle to find enough quality private antique furniture and works of art consignments for their sales, BBR Auctions breweriana sales are going from strength to strength at the South Yorkshire rooms near Barnsley.

LAPADA, the UK’s largest association of professional art and antiques dealers, is pioneering a new scheme that could see it merge with a leading European association.

A new world auction record for Sir Joshua Reynolds was achieved at Sotheby’s on November 29 when the oil on canvas Portrait of Omai sold for £9,400,500 (plus 20/15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

This codified sequence of columns, dots and captions is what the superstitious folk of 16th century Italy consulted with more zealotry than a tabloid-reading lottery pundit in search of Mystic Meg.

Former Sotheby’s chairman Alfred Taubman fell asleep during board meetings and was more concerned with getting his lunch than running his company, a New York jury was told last week.