News

WILKINSON’S/ CLARICE CLIFF: One might have expected Clarice Cliff pottery, with its very large UK collecting base, to be one of the areas of the market more resistant to economic concerns or the lack of confidence triggered by America’s low buying profile. But the jittery mood seems to have rubbed on the two most recent auctions to feature large quantities of Clarice material: that held by Christie’s South Kensington on November 2 and the Applied Arts sale at Sotheby’s Olympia.

With the purchase of Spink’s furniture restoration department on November 5 by its director Peter Holmes, all eyes are now looking to see what the future holds for the remaining departments at London’s oldest antique dealer.

FORMER Christie’s managing director Christopher Davidge has told the jury in the Alfred Taubman trial that Sotheby’s ex-chairman was involved in the illegal price-fixing between the two auction houses.

KAARU is a design-led developmental initiative from India which has already achieved much in sustaining the sub-continent’s rich but threatened traditional arts and crafts.

PORTRAIT miniatures are one field that has been performing strongly in recent seasons, an area of the market where the private buyer is very much in evidence.

ARTS Minister Tessa Blackstone has placed a temporary bar on the export of an important drawing, Study for the Institution of the Eucharist, by Federico Barocci (1528-1612).