Art finance

A major name, high quality, freshness to the market and a reasonable estimate are meant to be the all-important keys to success for a picture at auction. At least they used to before the terrorist attacks of September 11.

CHECKOUT, the payment feature introduced by eBay last month to streamline transactions, is to be altered following a campaign against it by sellers.

SOTHEBY’S Holdings Inc, the auction house’s parent company, have announced third quarter revenues for 2001 of $38.4m and a net loss for the period of $33m.

KAARU is a design-led developmental initiative from India which has already achieved much in sustaining the sub-continent’s rich but threatened traditional arts and crafts.

Owners of silver spoons are generally believed to have a head start in life, and the continuing bouyancy of this market might keep a few heads above water in the coming months.

These days it is all too easy to assume that everything that passes through the London salerooms is a totally known quantity that can no longer hold any surprises for either the auctioneer or the trade. But, believe it or not, London sales can still contain significant sleepers, as was demonstrated twice in the space of five days at the main London houses’ secondary salerooms.

TEFAF, the European Fine Art Foundation, who organise the Maastricht fair, have commissioned a detailed new study on the state of the European art market.

Even without the worldwide crises of the last two months, the market for Islamic works of art has always been volatile, subject to price polarisation and a degree of selectiveness.

Two of the biggest art insurance companies have warned the trade to expect a 20 per cent rise in the cost of renewing policies following the terrorist attacks in America, and the Afghanistan war.

THE acceptance that silver has long lost its shine does not mean that there is no active market, just that prices are lower. After this sale of 340 lots at Phillips’ Midlands operation on 19 September the familiar picture emerged of modern pieces struggling, standard material chugging along and items with appeal beyond the metal doing rather well.

Penrith Farmers' and Kidd's have been badly affected by world events this past year. Situated in one of the worst hit areas for the Foot and Mouth epidemic, the county all but shut up shop. And just as things were starting to pick up the devastating events in America have created a marked caution in the trade.

Last week’s German and Austrian art sales, the first major test of international art market since September 11, pointed to difficult conditions ahead for Sotheby’s and Christie’s – and indeed Phillips – during the forthcoming winter season.

THE cataclysmic events of September 11 in New York have thrown into spasm a UK art market that was already showing worrying signs of slowdown both in terms of supply and demand.

THE degree of demand for any type of ceramics can be gauged by the amount of damage buyers will tolerate – once it was only the rarest of early pieces where condition was not paramount, then this began to be true of 19th century majolica and now, apparently it is beginning to be the case when it comes to Moorcroft.

AS Sotheby’s announced their plans for Billingshurst, they also revealed disappointing worldwide results for the second quarter of the year that showed profits halved ($14.3m compared to $30m for 2000). They predicted a loss for the year as a whole.

CHRISTIE’S kept ahead of Sotheby’s in worldwide sales, recording a total of £681m ($974m) for the first six months compared to Sotheby’s £659m ($942.9m) – a gap of three per cent.

FRANCE: Auction sales in Paris in the first six months of 2001 totalled Fr2.56bn (£240m), a rise of 10 per cent compared to the same period in 2000. Art sales (as opposed to sales of vehicles or industrial material) showed an even sharper increase, up 12 per cent at Fr2.1bn (£195m).

UK: STEPHEN Morris Shipping were back in business first thing on Monday morning last week after fire destroyed their new Kings Cross premises on the previous Friday afternoon.

eBay has beaten predictions once again in its latest set of results, showing impressive growth in revenues as well as in the number of registered users.

GERMANY: Over the last few years there has been an increasing awareness that high quality works will always fetch exceptional auction prices almost regardless of where they come up for sale.