Auctioneers

DELVAUX and Redon were among eight artists granted solo exhibitions at Jacob’s Bateau Lavoir gallery in Rue de Seine between 1960 and 1986, along with James Ensor, Charles Filiger, Bernadette Kelly, Pierre Klossowski, Marie Laurencin, and Paul Wunderlich – all represented at Bailly-Pommery-Voutier & Sotheby's (23.92 - 14.35% buyer's premium), notably Filiger with 13 lots, and Ensor with eight.

DAY two of the sale of the Mira Jacob Collection, held by Bailly-Pommery-Voutier & Sotheby’s (23.92 - 14.35% buyer's premium), was devoted to prints and illustrated books and yielded €780,000 (£530,000) with all but seven of the 166 lots selling.

AN October 21 sale of historical documents and letters to be held in Ludlow by Mullock Madeley includes a vellum document of 1227, witnessed by Hugh de Burgh, in which Henry III grants the right in perpetuity to hold an annual fair to the Prior and Canons of St Mary Magdelene of Combwell (on the Kent/Sussex borders).

CHRISTIE'S South Kensington are to launch a new sales programme next year that will turn them into a seven-days-a-week operation.

RIGHT: London auctioneers Spink’s pre-sale billing of this Anglo Saxon gold penny as ”the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years” gained tangible endorsement last week when they sold it for £200,000 – a new record for an English coin.

THIS unusual metamorphic George III mahogany dressing table, right, goes under the Charterhouse gavel on Friday October 15.

THE focus of the furniture trade’s attention in Bamfords' (15% buyer's premium) 1025-lot Derbyshire outing on September 8 was a c.1835 mahogany, triple-pedestal dining table with a top formed from two D-sections and a central Pembroke drop leaf.

FURNITURE in Bonhams' (17.5/10% buyer's premium) Par sale on September 2 was given a considerable boost by a contingent of Irish dealers who between them secured around 20 of the more standard entries in the 104-lot section.

DISPERSING 200 mixed-quality clocks may seem a daunting prospect for some provincial auctioneers, but, by selling the Staffordshire collection in bite-size chunks through their general, oak and country and fine auctions, Richard Winterton (15% buyer's premium) managed to get away almost all entries during the summer months.

SOME provincial auctioneers batten down the hatches during August, but for Keys (10% buyer's premium) in Norfolk it was a particularly busy month with two antique sales, a collectors’ auction and a picture outing.

THE sale of a Shakespeare First Folio is a rare event, but the sale of a copy that emerged out of nowhere is something that comes around only once in a generation.

THE chronicles of Captain Cook and his perils on the high seas of the South Pacific, possess a mixture of action, adventure, discovery, science and romance that is enough to capture the most hardened imagination.

Given the Potteries location, it is hardly surprising that Royal Doulton and Beswick have long provided Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer's premium) with their bread-and-butter business as well as many top lots. The first day of their quarterly fine sales is always devoted to these staples, predominantly sourced from private vendors living within a 50-mile radius of the Hanley rooms.

BEING part of a large company such as The Fine Art Auction Group has its benefits when it comes to sourcing consignments and sharing expertise, but, on a day-to-day basis, it does not always make the specialist’s life any easier when it comes to spotting sleepers.

When it comes to pulling in buyers, the country house sale held on the premises is a hard format hard to beat – unless, of course, you can combine the attraction with a titled provenance.

“EVERY auction house’s dream” is how Rupert Powell, managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, described the discovery of a Shakespeare First Folio that will provide a fitting centrepiece for the company’s 500th sale on Thursday October 7.

FOLLOWING the Antiques Trade Gazette’s coverage of the sale of a micromosaic table signed by Michelangelo Barberi for £250,000 at Dreweatt Neate’s Donnington Priory rooms in January – still the highest price achieved for an item of furniture in a UK saleroom so far this year – the Newbury firm received a call from a gentleman in Scotland.

HIGH spot of the Asian works of art section of Skinners’ July 17 sale in Boston was an $85,000 (£49,945) bid on a pair of 16th/17th century, cane-seated hardwood ‘Official’s Hat’ chairs from the collection of Professor James Hightower. In a post-sale announcement, Skinners Asian specialist described them as “quintessential examples... and undoubtedly the finest pair of hat chairs to have come on the market in decades”.

IN rebacked and refurbished contemporary calf, the copy of Hobbes’ Leviathan... seen at a Dominic Winter sale of August 25 was a 1651 first edition, but both the engraved additional title and main printed title were cut down and relaid, the folding table was torn and repaired and there was some browning and dampstaining.

SOLD at £1650 in a July 6 sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne was a group of ten volumes, mostly in contemporary full or half calf, that were grouped under the heading ‘Scandal’.