International

GERMANY: There was widespread relief in the art world last week when the Zwinger Palace museum was saved from the worst of the flooding in Dresden.

USA: Dargate Auction Galleries of Pittsburgh, USA, will conduct their first sale under new ownership on September 20-21. Owners Dan Zivcho and Paul Novascel, two Cleveland-based investors who bought the business at auction for $50,000 earlier this year upon the retirement of former owners Carol and Larry Farley, have now signed a lease on new premises.

GERMANY: The world’s largest collection of Meissen porcelain has had to be rescued from serious flooding – only a week after plans were announced for the re-opening of the museum that houses it.

There is to be a major sale of Irish coins and medals in Dublin next year, on Friday, February 21, at the time of the Dublin International Coin Fair. This is being jointly hosted by James Adam of Dublin and Bonhams under their alias Glendining’s.

AFTER spending much of the summer in London trying to woo British dealers over to his Fall Fair in New York, it was back in America that more recently organiser David Lester achieved his biggest coup so far in launching this new event.

INDISPUTABLY Maryland’s top antique event, and arguably one of America’s top antiques attractions, the 22nd annual Baltimore Summer Antiques Fair runs from August 23 to 25.

The ceramics highlight of a mixed subject sale at Raymond de Nicolaÿ (17.94/14.35% buyer’s premium) at Drouot on June 26 was this elaborately decorated maiolica charger c.1520, from Deruta, 19in (49cm) in diameter, which made a double-estimate €330,000 (£213,000).

ANTHONY Molloy worked as a wildlife ranger for Ireland’s national heritage service, Duchas. When he retired a few years ago, at 65, his farewell gift was not the traditional watch, but a metal detector.

AUSTRALIAN auctioneers Cromwell’s are proving they are no square-heads by drumming up an army of loyal customers with a club for regular buyers.

BONHAMS, who have just announced their acquisition of US fine art auctioneers Butterfields from eBay, are to consolidate almost their entire programme of London sales at Knightsbridge and Bond Street.

After three years of restoration work, the porcelain rooms of the Zwinger State Art Collection in Dresden are to re-open to the public on Sunday October 6.

FRANCE: THE Louis XVI pyramid clock, 2ft 1in (63cm) and confidently attributed to bronzier François Vion, soared to a double-estimate €200,000 (£129,000), despite the fact that the escapement and pendulum suspension had been replaced, at De Nicolaÿ (15/10% buyer’s premium) on June 26.

FRANCE: Millon & Associés (17.5/ 13.5% buyer’s premium) June 26 sale included two watercolours taken from an album of drawings by Eugene Delacroix, which the artist presented to Count Charles de Mornay on their return from Morocco in 1832.

AUSTRALIA: RATHER farther to go for an August fair, but no doubt a journey well rewarded is the Australian Antique Dealers Association’s own Antiques and Fine Art Fair.

ITALY: A record price for a painting by Carlo Carrà was established in Italy back on May 21 in a sale of contemporary art held by Christie’s in Milan.

A US federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of former Sotheby’s chairman A. Alfred Taubman who had been found guilty of conspiring with rival auctioneer Christie’s International to fix commission fees.

The Free Society of Traders in Pennsilvania (sic) was chartered in England by William Penn as proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania, in March 1682, a few months before his departure to America.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s small 1832 child portrait of the future Kaiser Franz Joseph as a Small Grenadier playing with toy soldiers, right, panel 13 x 11in (33.5 x 28cm), led the Wiener Kunst sale in Vienna on June 11 with a low-estimate €150,000 (£97,000).

TOULON-based, but owned by Britain’s dmg, the Societé Française d’organisation have acquired the Cagnes-sur-Mer Antiques Fair which will be held next in the famous Hippodrome of the town in South-West France from September 12 to 16.

USA: THREE pieces of Tiffany art glass and a Tiffany-type lamp from the Handel factory – sold by Doyles of New York on June 5 and by Skinners of Boston on June 22 – are featured here.