Phillips

CHRISTIE'S and Sotheby's announced a substantial increase in turnover for 1999, each registering total sales in the world art market of $2.3 billion (£1.46bn).

FRANCE: PHILLIPS' new owners, luxury goods group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, are to acquire Tajan, the leading French auction house.

UK: LARGELY ignored by the English and Continental trade at Phillips' Edinburgh sale, this 17th century ivory figure of an unknown Dutchman was so desired by two competing Scottish dealers that it brought £11,500 against a £2000 top estimate.

UK: SEVEN telephone bidders swooped on this Victorian oak dining table, 6ft 6in by 3ft 7in (2.00 x 1.10m) offered with an estimate of £1800-2200 at Phillips Edinburgh on December 17.

UK: THE Scottish art market has been given a boost of confidence over the past few weeks by the strong performance of three sales in Edinburgh, that turned over £1.5m of antiques from Scottish sources.

WIDESPREAD rumours of the imminent takeover of London auctioneers Phillips were confirmed last week as Bernard Arnault’s luxury goods group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) paid a reported £70m for the whole of the Phillips Auction Group.

Phillips were making no comment last week following confident assertions in the Financial Times that a French takeover of the last of the top three auctioneers under UK ownership was imminent.

UK: SEPTEMBER 22 was a big day for English porcelain, it saw the first part of Bernard Watney’s celebrated collection of early English porcelain go under the hammer at Phillips. A packed saleroom filled to capacity with collectors and dealers contested the 447 lots to over £665,000, way past the pre-sale predictions.

UK: THE rumour that the senior executives who have quit Phillips Edinburgh are to set up a rival auctioneers under the Lyon & Turnbull banner has been confirmed.

UK: Rival venture rumoured Five senior staff at Phillips Edinburgh, including the manager Nick Curnow, have resigned and left the company to pursue new interests.

UK: PHILLIPS Cardiff are among the three rooms which will soon close, but they held a good sale on August 4 where this pair of English 17th century brass candlesticks, 61/2in (17cm) high were consigned to the rooms from a private source.

UK: PHILLIPS are continuing the restructuring of their regional sales business with the closure of three more auction rooms: Glasgow, Cardiff and Retford will all shut by the end of September and be replaced by offices for dealing with clients.

UK: “A piece of the plaid worn by Prince Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden and left by him at Sir James Mackintosh Moy Hall Chief of the Clan Chatten. Presented by Lady Mackintosh to Sir Thomas Grey.” – so read the handwritten statement which accompanied this tattered tartan fragment, 6in (15cm) square, to Phillips’ sale of textiles in Edinburgh on July 2.

PHILLIPS have announced the appointment of Mark O. Howald as managing director of Phillips-Selkirk in St Louis as of May 1, 1999.

UK: IT may have been a touch risky for Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) to illustrate a dodo on the front cover of a catalogue for the sale of 19th and 20th century design in Edinburgh on May 21, but thankfully for the auctioneers it proved to be anything but a dead duck when it came to the bidding.

Blenheim St to Bond St UK: PHILLIPS’ London headquarters are to be transformed as part of a long-term strategic plan to take the company’s core business up-market.

UK: “PLACE the flattened end of the flagstaff in the socket made for it, then raise the hammer until it catches the base of the flag socket and remains upright: place a cap in the capholder and mount the soldiers along the trench.

UK: “THE richness of the language in which this manuscript is written speaks redolently of the period, and of the writer himself,” said the Phillips cataloguer of an illuminated manuscript of religious meditations which sold at £4400 to Quaritch.

UK: SIGNED cabinet photographs of Oscar and Constance Wilde flank one of their younger son, Vivian, which has been inscribed and dated 1891 to the reverse – although the well known portrait of Oscar is known to date from 1889.

UK: ONE OF THE principal successes in the printed portion of this sale was a copy of the 1827 Evans auction catalogue of the Library of the Late Lord Byron....