Auctioneers

BONHAMS have taken part of the ground floor of Royal Victoria House in the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, as their new operational base in Kent and Sussex.

ANY perception that the demand for top English delftwares had softened seems to have been scotched by the huge competition for this 17th century London-made mug.

CHRISTIE’S chairman Edward Dolman is leaving the company to join the Board of Trustees of the Qatar Museums Authority.

A PICTURE purchased at Sotheby’s Chatsworth ‘Attic’ sale last year has become the centre of an attribution debate after being re-ascribed to Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) by a leading London dealership.

BILLED as “the greatest collection of Modern British Art ever to come to the market”, the sale of the Evill-Frost collection at Sotheby’s in London did not disappoint.

WHEN a grand, photographically illustrated record of the Great Exhibition of 1851 was planned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee, they nonetheless kept a tight grip on the exhibition purse strings.

IT is interesting to compare the commercial fortunes of these two similar, but not identical, Mouseman adzed oak sideboards sold at auction in recent weeks.

PAINTINGS may have provided the large bulk of the money raised in last week’s Russian sales, but the auctions also provided the usual glut of works of art, Fabergé and icons.

GERMAN fine art auctioneers Ketterer Kunst will move their Hamburg branch to new premises later this month after ten years in the Messberghof.

The OED lists ‘sphairistike’ as the name under which a certain Englishman, Major Walter Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a new outdoor racquet and ball game in 1874.

BONHAMS have announced that they will increase their buyer’s premium on September 1.

ANOTHER major price for L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) came courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull's latest evening sale in Edinburgh, as The Hawker's Cart sold at £550,000 to a private buyer south of the border.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

THE man who oversaw the French Revolution's 'reign of terror' but who finally met his end at the guillotine himself, Maximilien de Robespierre, was back on the block again at the end of last month as Sotheby's auctioned an extraordinary cache of documents in Paris.

IT is symptomatic of the changes in the Poole pottery market that the joint top selling lot in a large specialist sale last month was a 1960s rimmed dish.

THE latest Modern British art sale at Christie's in London set a series of new benchmarks for the sector.

GLASGOW acquired a new auction house last month when Mulberry Bank Auctions officially opened with a drinks reception on the evening of May 20.

DONNINGTON Priory saleroom Dreweatts sold the collection of Bob Oliphant as part of a wider-ranging auction of traditional art and antiques on May 24-25.

SALISBURY auctioneers Woolley & Wallis saw two more lots make over £1m last week.