News

UK: IN THE original greyish purple ribbed and blind-stamped cloth bindings, this 1847 first edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre brought a bid of £30,000 from an American dealer, who may or may not have been that same, un-named West Coast dealer who bought some of the Jane Austens described above, and who also paid £7000 for a three vol. 1853 first of Charlotte’s Villette in the original greyish-olive morocco cloth.

UK: Early spoons seem to be one of the most buoyant sectors of the silver collectors’ market at present, which is fortunate given the rate with which collections are landing at the rostrum.

UK: THE downward spiral of the euro against sterling since the single currency was launched has been a problem for auctioneers, particularly in the South, who could once count on French, Italian and Spanish dealers keeping the lower and middle ranges of the market buoyant, so there was naturally some satisfaction for these Devon auctioneers to see a little of the old peseta power in February.

UK: THE net surrounding the UK’s illicit art and antiquities trade has tightened with the Government signing up to an international convention to return stolen artefacts to their rightful owners.

FRANCE: THE largest hoard ever of gold Celtic coins – the French call them Gauloise – is being offered at auction in Paris on March 27. The expert is Alain Weil (54 rue de Richelieu). There are 145 of them and they were issued by the Gaulish tribes of the Cenomanes, who bequeathed their name to present-day le Mans, and the Venetes who dominated the area round Vannes on the south coast of Brittany.

Illustrated here are two more selections from Sotheby's English Literature & History sale held on December 14.

FRANCE: Francis Briest, France’s leading modern art auctioneer, has replaced Etude Tajan as the French member of International Auctioneers, becoming the tenth member of the worldwide auction grouping (alongside Lempertz of Cologne, the Vienna Dorotheum, Zurich’s Galerie Koller, Lawsons of Sydney, Swann Galleries of New York, Butterfields from California, Finarte Milan and Finarte Madrid).