Art and antiques news from 2015

‘TEFAF Maastricht’ opened last week to bright spring sunshine and the usual heaving crowds thronging around the 280 stands.

More news of sales is filtering through from the first weekend at TEFAF Maastricht, where more than 10,000 visitors attended the fair preview last Thursday March 12.

“Most of us will never experience space, which explains why space-flown items are in such high demand. Their travels imbue them with an almost mystical aura.”

COMMENT: The TEFAF Report shows that the art market has fully recovered since the 2008 financial crash, but still faces a number of challenges, such as late or non-payment.

Post-War and Contemporary art accounts for almost half of total spend at auction

Clarion Events have announced a change of date for the Antiques for Everyone winter fair. It will now run from November 19-22 in Hall 3 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

Only one other major George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) manuscript has come up for auction in the last 40 years, so Stargardt in Berlin can be assured of an international audience for the extensive autograph work they will offer on March 24-25.

A Chelsea porcelain beaker with blue and white botanical decoration caused a sensation at Peter Wilson latest sale in Nantwich. Estimated at £100-200, it sold at £37,000.

Christie’s South Kensington celebrated their 40th anniversary year with a 1970s themed party at their Old Brompton Road saleroom. Current staff, former employees and others connected with CSK turned out in droves on March 4 to raise a glass to the auction house.

The directors of the ‘Harrogate Antique & Fine Art Fair’ have cancelled this year’s spring event due to the clash with the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race now taking place on May 1-3.

The April edition of the ‘Kunst & Antiquitäten’ fair will not go ahead this year.

Sotheby’s year-end results for 2014 signal a refocus of activity to encompass much more of the middle market than in recent years.

Every year on the cusp between winter and spring, the enormous ‘TEFAF Maastricht’ arrives at the Maastricht Exhibition & Conference Centre (MECC), a rare souk of art, antiques and design from antiquity to contemporary, Boulle to Basquiat.

Old Master paintings rarely take centre stage over Modern, Impressionist or Contemporary art these days. Yet this most traditional of collecting disciplines remains the soul of TEFAF Maastricht, the umbilical cord to its genesis as the Pictura fair.

Potteries Auctions in Staffordshire are offering this large William Moorcroft exhibition vase at their second auction in their new premises in Silverdale on April 25.

More information has emerged about the colourful recent history of the £5m Wolsey Angels.

This late 19th century Native American outfit proved the highlight of Fonsie Mealy’s latest sale in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, when it sold for €320,000 (£246,150).

Holloway’s of Banbury, founded in the early 1970s by the late Tim Holloway and owned since 2001 by Nick Williams, is to join Charles Ross Auctioneers, owned by Russell Beard.

How do you prevent your own identity as a dealer being subsumed by that of the fair at which you are exhibiting?

The online-only sale of a modern British gallantry award estimated at a hefty £100,000-120,000 was always going to be an interesting test of the market.