News

THE word from Ireland is that autumn could be hard work – judging by results at the antiques fair staged as part of the Royal Dublin Society Horse Show from August 6 to 10. The Horse Show is a prime event in the city’s social calendar and the idea of the antiques fair – organised in the past by veteran Irish promoter Louis O’ Sullivan but this year by the RDS itself – is to put the 25 exhibitors in a potentially profitable ambience.

NEW York’s Chinese Porcelain Company hold their autumn exhibition Recent Acquisitions, Fall 2003 from October 9 to 25 at their elegant galleries at 475 Park Avenue at 58th Street. Some highlights from the exhibition will be displayed on their stand at the International Art and Antique Dealers Show at Manhattan’s Seventh Regiment Armory from October 17 to 23.

Well, it’s happened at last! The first £1million sale of campaign medals and awards (ODM) has taken place. It took Dix Noonan Webb (15% buyer’s premium) 1155 lots to disperse this assemblage. The total was £1,013,510 and this is the hammer total so there was no fudging with the buyer’s premium to jack the total over the magic number.

Miller’s Price Guide 2003: Antiques Under £1000, published by Miller’s. ISBN 184000603X £16.99pb

The Collection of Louis Vivien, a Paris bookseller who opened his shop in Rue des Ecoles in 1905, swiftly specialising in the aeronautical world after attending the inaugural Salon Aéronautique of 1908, provided Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) with yet another new sale theme – Aviation – on June 21.

JUST 365 More Days Till Artiade – The Olympics Of Contemporary Art ran the baffling headline of a missive that I received last week. It transpires that Artiade is no less than a grand international art exhibition which will accompany the XXVIII Athens Olympic Games next year.

Last summer Sotheby’s took a bid of £36,000 on a copy of the 1937 first edition of The Hobbit inscribed in October of that year to Tolkien’s Aunt Jane; this summer they raised £40,000 for a copy that he had inscribed at the time of publication.