News

FRANCE: JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY brought early Spring smiles to Drouot as his Maison du Jardinier (1739) pictured here, first shown at the Salon of 1740, sold to a French buyer for a world record Fr6.2m (£639,000) under the Le Blanc hammer on March 17.

UK: WHILE the Chelsea Antiques Fair, one of our most venerable events, does not seem to generate any buying buzz, it soldiers on and must be doing something right because year after year very good dealers return twice annually to stand at this most traditional of antiques events.

US: THE object pictured here provided, literally and figuratively, the crowning glory of a highly successful $3.65m sale of Judaica at Sotheby’s New York on March 16.

Royal Crown Derby – Imari Wares by Ian Cox

‘Town’ piece leads field in farmhouse territory UK: AUCTIONEER Richard Harrison describes his rooms as being ‘in the back of beyond’ but the Northern English, Scottish and Irish trade and not a few London dealers can be relied on to make their way to Cumbria for the quarterly sales.

UK: “THE saving grace of the whisky bottle market,” said Alan Blakeman who runs bottle specialists BBR (buyer’s premium 10 per cent) , “is that as soon as the Australians, with their currency problems, started to disappear from the scene, the Americans started to show an interest.”

IT IS not only in their association with The Auction Channel that Bonhams are forging ahead with new technologies; the saleroom recently re-launched its Web-site, which has been redesigned to incorporate a range of new client services.