News

Although billed as English and Continental furniture, and Works of Art Bonhams’ (17.5/10 % buyer’s premium) sale on June 11 was very much slated towards the home market, with English fare accounting for around 100 of the 153 lots.

EBAY have struck a $1.5bn deal that will give them control of PayPal, the leading online payment service, by the end of the year.

The extent to which a provincial auctioneer should be liable for underselling a work of art is again under scrutiny as a vendor threatens legal action.

History was made at Sotheby’s July 10 Old Master Paintings sale when Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ long-lost masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents, sold in the room to the Mayfair-based book dealer Sam Fogg for £45m, the highest auction price ever achieved for a work of art in the UK.

The oriental inspiration of this 51/2in (13cm) high Meissen teapot of c.1728 extends not only to its finely painted figural decoration by J G Horoldt but also to its peach-shaped form. At £78,000 it made the highest price in a single-owner collection of Meissen porcelain held at Christie’s on July 8.

WHILE trade buying was a feature of their capital’s main June important furniture sale, it was less evident earlier in the month at Sotheby’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium), Bond Street, Croft Castle auction on June 6, that offered buyers a more middle range selection of English brown furniture from the Herefordshire estate of the late Lord Croft.

UK: Scarborough auctioneer David Duggleby has taken over Bairstow Eves’ Whitby salerooms, effectively doubling the size of his operations in North Yorkshire.