David Elstob, director of Elstob Auctioneers; Melanie Saleem, jewellery specialist and general valuer; Camilla Rawlinson, saleroom manager; Nigel Whitfield, photographer; consultant Henrietta Graham and Rohan McCulloch, paintings and sculpture specialist.
Elstob rebrands and revamps sales
Auction house Elstob & Elstob has updated its name and changed its structure. The firm was established in 2019 by David and Beth Elstob in Ripon, North Yorkshire, later moving to the nearby town of Bedale.
The firm will now be known as Elstob Auctioneers with David Elstob becoming the sole director of the company. It has also taken this opportunity to restructure its auction calendar.
Elstob will now host a Fine Art and Antiques Sale every four weeks.
The first auction in the new schedule will take place over three days from May 18-20.
David Elstob said customer feedback had led to the change to create sales with a mixture of items.
He added: “Moving our sales to the end of the week and including a Saturday will also enable more people to take part and the regularity of a monthly auction will mean that people can anticipate the timing of the sales.”
The Fine Art and Antiques Sales will include regular categories – including ceramics, silver, jewellery, fine art, clocks and watches, furniture, militaria and fine wine and spirits.
Cruse in control at Art Basel fair
Maike Cruse of Art Basel.
Art Basel has appointed Maike Cruse to become director of its show in Basel. Cruse is currently director of Gallery Weekend Berlin and will take up the Art Basel role in July.
She will report to Vincenzo de Bellis, director of its Fairs and Exhibition Platforms. Cruse previously worked as communications manager for the Art Basel fair from 2008-11.
Early glimpses of treasures to come
The Treasure House Fair is promoting its commitment to overseas exhibitors with a series of early highlights from European and US galleries.
Long-Sharp Gallery from Indianapolis, US, is bringing a number of drawings fresh from the estate of Andy Warhol. Focus ing on f lower compositions, the display is titled Andy’s Secret Garden. Fellow US dealership Geoffrey Diner Gal l e ry from Washington, DC, brings design-focused items including a bench by George Nakashima (1905-90).
From Europe comes Univers du Bronze of Paris, which offers works by Les Lalanne, while Galeries Gmurzynska of Zurich will bring Fire Painting by Yves Klein, along with various works of Surrealism, Pop Art and more.
The fair runs from June 22-26 on London’s Chelsea Embankment, filling the void left by Masterpiece, which earlier this year announced it would no longer take place.
Church Street fest makes its return
The Church Street Antiques Fair is returning to Marylebone in London after four years away. It will take place on June 11 with 60 antique, vintage and art dealers stalling out along the road. See Fairs, Markets, Shops & Centres on page 50 for more.
Anyone for tennis memorabilia?
An antiques and vintage tennis racket collection put together over a decade by an IT entrepreneur and tennis enthusiast will be offered at an online auction coinciding with the dates of the Roland-Garros tournament.
Dubai-based Slava Babienko, CEO of Koronapay Europe, will offer 91 of his rackets and tennis accessories dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
The oldest in the collection is an AG Spalding & Bros racket dated 1876.
AG Spalding & Bros racket dated 1876 being sold as part of the Slava Babienko collection.
Babienko said: “Like any collector, I like the thrill of searching for rare and unique objects, and thanks to my love of tennis, I have assembled a large collection of original antique rackets, tennis balls, tournament cups, and even tennis-themed postage stamps.”
The online auction will run from May 22 to June 11 via the US NFT marketplace called OpenSea. (NFTs are non-fungible tokens: units of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded).
Each lot will include a physical object that can be shipped internationally and a digitalised NFT version.
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The most clicked-on stories for week May 4-10 on antiquestradegazette.com
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2 Detective work sheds some light on a £75,000 chandelier
3 Church thefts spark fears of crime spate
4 Exceptional 18th century pocket watch is among five lots to watch
5 Heroic diver’s Rolex watch featured on Antiques Roadshow comes to Norfolk auction
In Numbers
£15m
The top pre-sale estimate of a diamond and pearl necklace and earrings set worn by Princess Diana in June 1993 to attend a performance of Swan Lake at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Commissioned from jeweller Garrard and based on a design by Diana, the set has changed hands a number of times since her death. It is now being offered by a wealthy Ukrainian family at US auction house Guernsey’s. The ‘Swan Lake Suite’ will be exhibited at The Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, New York, ahead of the auction on June 27.
Bookshop in Sussex not Wimbledon
The Tennis Bookshop is not based in Arthur Road, Wimbledon, as reported in ATG No 2592.
Alan Chalmers, who set up The Tennis Bookshop in 1988, has operated from 4 The Rockeries, Petersfield Road, Midhurst, in West Sussex for the past four years and had run a website previously which is still viewable for reference purposes at tennisbookshop.com.
