Art and antiques news from 1999

UK: TWO rather remarkable pieces of British heritage met rather different reactions at the Billingshurst statuary and architectural items although both went to the same bidder – a private Middle Eastern buyer.

UK: LOCKED bill to bill on the five vellum rolls or membranes shown above, the longest of them stretching to 34in (86cm), are no fewer than 99 swan heads showing the different mandible marks used by ‘gamesters’ on the East Anglian Broadlands.

GERMANY: IN another fortnight of rapid developments in e-commerce, Artnet.com, specialist fine art service provider on the Internet, went public on May 17 when it offered shares in its parent company, artnet.com AG, on Frankfurt’s Neuer Markt stock exchange.

UK: ROBERT Gatling presented his rapid fire gun to the killing fields of the American Civil War – sparking a race between rival generals, statesmen and technicians to develop an automatic weapon with the capacity for achieving the most kills in the shortest time.

UK: AN appeal is likely this week against a council’s decision to enforce the return of nine paintings sold in the major dispersal at Noseley Hall in Leicestershire at the end of last September.

UK: THE WEEK before Harry Lyons of New Century opened his exhibition of Dresser at Kensington Church Street, the Leicester rooms of Warner Auctions sold this gilt-lined ebonised side table attributed to Christopher Dresser.

UK: IT may have been a touch risky for Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) to illustrate a dodo on the front cover of a catalogue for the sale of 19th and 20th century design in Edinburgh on May 21, but thankfully for the auctioneers it proved to be anything but a dead duck when it came to the bidding.

UK: THE Art and Antiques Helpline, a seven-day-a-week service which will give access to one of the most comprehensive databases of stolen art and antiques, is to come into operation this summer.

FRANCE: THE FRENCH government’s apparent disregard for their art market, reflected by the repeated postponement of the auction reform (see above), was further illustrated by the dramatic last-minute cancellation of the sale of the contents of the former royal château at Randan in the Auvergne.

UK: A WORCESTER porcelain wine funnel c.1770 – of a particularly large size at 51/2in (14cm) high – printed in underglaze blue with butterflies and sprays of flowers.

US: IF UK dealers need a reminder as to why their American counterparts are frantically plundering these shores for fine English examples of their own 18th century copies, then they should look no further than the premium inclusive $336,000 (£213,000) paid by an American private collector for this Queen Anne-style Philadelphia walnut side chair at Freeman’s of Philadelphia on April 16.

FRANCE: A NEW date of June 10 has been set for the first parliamentary reading of the long-delayed bill reforming French auction system.

UK: A SECURITY device which promises to revolutionise the handling and mobility of large antiques – in particular garden statuary – has just come onto the market after winning the London International Inventions Fair Invention of the Year Award.

THE first of the new-format International Sales at Sotheby’s Sussex rooms could hardly have got off to a more successful launch – not only a premium-inclusive total of £750,000 from the 513 lots of ceramics and furniture on day one but also the highest price ever recorded for furniture at Billingshurst, when they sold at more than five times high estimate to a London dealer for £62,000 plus 15/10 per cent buyer’s premium.

UK: HALLS of Shrewsbury have acquired Boothmans in the heart of Chester. The saleroom and fine art business belonging to Peter and Sally Williams once housed Sotheby’s Chester branch – where Richard Allen of Halls was director.

UK: BY the mid-19th century Redditch in Warwickshire had become the centre of the world for the production of fishing hooks and needles, supposedly skills handed down by the monks of Bordesley Abbey, who learnt their metalworking talents from links with Spain.

US: THE bonanza of Impressionist and 19th century art sales in New York, headlined by the record $55m (£33.5m) hammer price paid for a Cézanne still life, has highlighted various trends in the market, not least the dominance of Post Impressionist works.

UK: THE Cornish Ware range is one of a number of once everyday 20th century ceramics now attracting serious collectors.

UK: OVERTLY Continental pieces of furniture are not the most commercial proposition in the current trading environment (the strength of sterling have limited the overseas presence for many months now), but Bellman’s West Sussex rooms had no difficulty in selling a fine example of Dutch/Flemish cabinetmaking at their April sale.

UK: A DOG had bitten one of the legs... and possibly worse, and two parts were knocked off by individuals at the viewing, but neither of these detractions put off Smith the Rink of Harrogate from bidding £13,400 plus 12 per cent buyer’s premium for this George III tea-table at Patrick Cheyne of Altrincham on May 8. Why?