Art and antiques news from 1999

UK & US: A NEW Internet auction house, due to launch simultaneously in the United States and the UK on October 15, aims to woo dealers in high value art and antiques by special incentives and simplifying the process.

UK: The Ant Hills of Commerce, 20 x 141/4in (51 x 36cm), Richard Wynne Nevinson’s oil on canvas scene of New York, was consigned from a local deceased estate which had owned it for more than 50 years to George Kidner of Lymington, Hants, where it was estimated at £15,000-20,000.

UK: THE late 19th century cranberry glass and gilt metal ‘self-perpetuating table fountain’, pictured right, was the executive desktop toy of its day.

UK: SEPTEMBER 22 was a big day for English porcelain, it saw the first part of Bernard Watney’s celebrated collection of early English porcelain go under the hammer at Phillips. A packed saleroom filled to capacity with collectors and dealers contested the 447 lots to over £665,000, way past the pre-sale predictions.

US & UK: AN English antiques dealer based in the United States has just helped to reunite Aldenham School with a bronze statue stolen from its grounds 21 years ago.

UK: THE Russians had the brains for a head start in the space race but the Americans possessed the capital to fund a sustained interest in rocket programmes.

UK: THE conviction of a jeweller on a charge of criminal deception has raised serious questions as to the legal obligation of dealers to give a ‘fair price’ for items, even when being offered a bargain.

UK: A RULING on whether a series of paintings constitute part of the fixtures of a stately home may set a precedent in similar cases where the owner wishes to sell them.

UK: NOSTRADAMUS made a career of it, as have a host of soothsayers through the ages, but many of them were less prophetic than a one-off special edition of the Daily Mail printed more than 70 years ago.

UK: THE autumn sale season got properly under way last week with three sales in the ‘Country House’ vein. Offered from Vost’s at Tattersalls in Newmarket on September 16 were the contents of Badlington Manor, the property of the retired stock broker Mr Keith Heathcote.

UK: SINCE new Treasure Trove laws were introduced over a year ago the number of reported treasure finds has increased sevenfold, from 25 a year to 179.

US: SOTHEBY’S have added a well known public face to their emerging Internet business with the appointment of Chris Jussel as senior vice president of their online auctions associate programme.

UK & US: THE former Director of Phillips in America, Paul Roberts, has been appointed both vice chairman of the new-look Edinburgh outfit Lyon and Turnbull and president of Freeman Fine Arts of Philadelphia, with the aim of forging business links between Scotland and America's oldest independent auctioneers.

UK: WHEN the wife of a descendant from the ancient Scottish clan of Macleod walked into the Sussex salerooms of Gorringes with this unassuming little silver tumbler, few realised that it had been witness to a gruesome Highlands murder more than two centuries before.

UK: Vectis, the Stockton-on-Tees auctioneers hosted their monthly sale at The Royal National Hotel in London on September 8.

UK: A DEALER who “fenced” nearly a million pounds worth of stolen art and antiques over six years has been jailed for five years.

UK: IT is about as accurate as a relief map moulded from pearlware could be, but why, assembled dealers and collectors at Sotheby’s Gleneagles were asking themselves, was the title of the country to the piece, left, inscibed upside down?

SINGLE OWNER collections and strong selectivity are the key factors behind the 19 per cent sterling increase in Christie’s worldwide auction turnover for the first six months of 1999, say the auctioneers.

UK: A PRIME piece of Gothic revival furniture, this early Victorian oak metamorphic library armchair, possibly to a design by John Loudon, made £5600 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium) from the Irish trade at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on August 24.

UK: IN the annals of blood sport history, one man stands above all the other hunters, shooters and fishers on his individual pile of trophies.