News

UK: One of this year’s most stunning finds, a group of four rare Sèvres Etruscan red ground dessert plates from the Prince Napoleon Service, 1854-6, offered at Mellors and Kirk, Nottingham, on April 5.

NOT one of the best silver and jewellery sales ever to have been held at Phillips, Leeds – most entries sold at under £1000 – there was nevertheless some keen buying with a very satisfactory 89 per cent success rate and the occasional prized item.

UK: RESOURCEFULNESS is a characteristic of the successful dealer, and there are occasions where profit margins can be improved by, say, slipping an extra leaf into a dining table, or turning a dressing table into one of those rare kidney-shaped desks.

UK: NINETEENTH century genre paintings with strong narrative and moralising elements have not been the strongest performers at auction in recent years.

UK: MARCH was a busy month in London and successful with it. On the 15th, Spink (15 per cent buyer’s premium) sold the definitive collection of Tudor silver coins formed over several decades by Roger Shuttlewood.

There was the familiar wide mix and flash of quality at this Dales auctioneers’ weekly sale, where the top price came from a piece over the Pennines – an 18th century yew wood dresser base that had originally graced a pub in Blackpool.

EIRE: WITH the traditional Irish sales due in London next month, many an eye was on the Dublin sale held by James Adams (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on March 28 to see how pictures were selling in their native land.