News

Although there has been talk of the furniture trade holding back at auction, dealers may now be looking to buy stock in the run-up to Christmas and the trade secured almost all of the top furniture entries in Michael J. Bowman’s 489-lot sale on 13 October.

PACKERS and shippers Air Sea Packing Group have developed a unique facility to help plug the gap for European dealers left without a New York showcase this autumn.

DESMOND Morris is perhaps best known for his books and TV series exploring the behavioural patterns of humans and other animals. Not so well known is his fondness for collecting Ancient Cypriot Art, objects that reach back in time to an age when the society he so avidly studies was in its infancy.

DECO & MODERNIST FURNITURE: While much of higher-end Deco struggled to find buyers prepared to match the bullish levels seen in recent seasons, there was still some interest in this field, and the odd exception to buck the trend.

MACKINTOSH: One of the most dramatic results of the series cropped up in Christie’s Important Decorative Arts auction on November 8, and it was one that would appear to have little to do with fashion, economics, or shifts in buyers’ confidence.

WILKINSON’S/ CLARICE CLIFF: One might have expected Clarice Cliff pottery, with its very large UK collecting base, to be one of the areas of the market more resistant to economic concerns or the lack of confidence triggered by America’s low buying profile. But the jittery mood seems to have rubbed on the two most recent auctions to feature large quantities of Clarice material: that held by Christie’s South Kensington on November 2 and the Applied Arts sale at Sotheby’s Olympia.

Like tea caddies in furniture sales, teapots have their own following in ceramics sales like the one at Phillips Leeds, where the 51/2in (14cm) Minton majolica Japanese Actor model, above right, date-coded 1874, made a within-estimate £1100 which took into account some damage to finial and spout.