News

Basel fair shows its mettle: NOW established as a notable international fixture this year’s Cultura, to be held in Basel, Switzerland from November 14 to 19, is a month later and a day shorter than in the past, and looking at the exhibitor list of 55 dealers it looks stronger than ever.

WITHDRAWN from sale at the eleventh hour, a recently-discovered portfolio of late 18th century topographical watercolours of Canada have been sold by private treaty to Library and Archives Canada and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.

A quarter of a century ago, Christie’s sold an amazing doll’s house known as Titania’s Palace. This truly palatial mansion, more miniature museum than dolls’ house, was designed by Sir Nevile Wilkinson over 15 years from 1907-22, when it was opened by Queen Mary. Initially intended for Sir Nevile’s daughter, as the house and project grew it turned into a fund-raising publicity exercise for children’s charities.

THIS week sees a two-day international conference at The Savoy in London to mark the centenary of the National Art Collections Fund. Saving Art for the Nation, A Valid Approach to 21st-Century Collecting? runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 11 and 12, and will focus on whether it matters if works of art that were once the pride of British private collections go overseas and how they should be rescued for the nation if we believe it is important to keep them here.

WITH vendors finding greater confidence (and, in some cases, greater incentives) to offer blue chip works, both Christie’s and Sotheby’s mounted strong sales of Impressionist and Modern art in New York last week. Ahead of this week’s sales of Contemporary art, the two big players both improved substantially upon last year’s figures and posted artists records for Modigliani, Léger, Klimt, Jawlensky and Moore against a backdrop of solid levels of demand.

Sotheby’s have appointed their current German chief, Philipp Wurttemberg, to succeed Laure de Beauvau Craon as head of Sotheby’s France. M. Wurttemberg will start in the job in January 2004, while continuing as managing director of Sotheby’s Germany, a post he has held since 1999.

THE Chicago Clearing Corporation, the US traders in class action certificates, are to visit London again to buy and sell the vouchers issued following the Christie’s/Sotheby’s collusion case settlement.