Bonhams

DEMAND for Martin Brothers pottery may have tapered off slightly but it still provided three of the top prices at Bonhams’ recent Ceramic Design sale.

NO-ONE seemed to be in doubt about the quality of Sevi Guatelli’s Clarice Cliff collection.

Prisoner-of-war work is the name given to intricately crafted small objects created from carved bone or wood and straw marquetry by captured French prisoners languishing in the hulks and other jails during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

The evocatively named Pickleherring factory is one of the earliest known locations where English delftware was produced.

BONHAMS’ latest silver auction was another sale of two parts. Around a third of it was devoted entirely to one specialist collecting field, early spoons, the bulk from one vendor, Mr Britton Smith.

It took them over a week, but Bonhams have now been able to announce a new record for a piece of 19th century furniture achieved. The new high was achieved when this French ormolu, lacquer and Brazilian rosewood cabinet imitating the shape of a Japanese shodana realised a mighty £1.8m.

BONHAMS & Butterfields saw a strong price for a Korean ceramic in their Asian works of art sale in San Francisco on December 9.

BONHAMS have created a department for modern and contemporary South Asian and Middle Eastern art.

This monumental 19th century Russian gilt-bronze mounted porcelain vase, created by the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg, is thought to have been included in the wedding dowry of a daughter of Tsar Nicholas I.

with buy-in rates exceeding 60 per cent at many sales, Russian Week in London proved this hitherto burgeoning market to be as vulnerable to the economic crisis as any other.

The collection of national treasure, writer and poet, jazz musician and eco-warrior, but most memorably of all, the Goon and tormented comic genius that was Spike Milligan, brought strong bidding at Bonhams on November 25.

JUST over a year after they held the sale of the contents of The Savoy Hotel, Bonhams are to embark on a second refurbishment sale of a London landmark.

COMING just hours after the election of Barack Obama in the US, a poster of the new President-elect sold at Bonhams & Butterfields in California for a double-estimate $4800 (£3145).

BONHAMS announced last week that all their businesses worldwide would now be subject to external regulation by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Chairman Robert Brooks, who has consistently called for greater transparency in the auction system, explained why they had chosen to become a firm “regulated by RICS”.

THE contemporary art downturn had a tangible effect on the market for urban art as the sales staged in London by Bonhams in New Bond Street on October 23 and Dreweatts in Shoreditch on October 14 witnessed greater selectivity amongst buyers.

Royal Worcester porcelain is one of those collecting areas which is plentiful enough in its many different ornamental styles to support a wide collecting base. There are buyers for all the different forms, from George Owen’s scarce reticulated vases to Doris Lindner’s equestrian models.

The volume of artist Louis Wain’s distinctive ceramic animals making a sudden appearance on the market has raised the possibility that some could be reproductions or fakes. Seven have been offered at various UK salerooms in the last month, while two suspect examples have already been pulled from a Bonhams sale.

Bonhams Oxford are to leave the city centre in favour of new premises in a village just north of the city.

This rare medal by the Glasgow silversmith Robert Gray & Son from c.1807 commemorates a successful campaign of the previous year to resist imposition of duties on the local tobacco trade.

Bonhams have unveiled their new Scottish headquarters in Edinburgh after a 12-week works schedule has transformed building at 22 Queen Street, creating one large saleroom on the ground floor and two interlinked salerooms upstairs.