News

The international market for Impressionist and Modern art saw further consolidation last week in London when Sotheby’s and Christie’s Part I and Part II sales turned over a combined total of £86.3m, some 45 per cent up on the £47.8m achieved at the equivalent sales last year.

UK: THE Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers will be absorbed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors following an overwhelming vote in favour of the move by ISVA members.

UK: TWO-thirds of the items recommended for export licence deferrals by the Export Review Committee during 1998/9 ended up being sold abroad anyway, their annual report reveals.

UK: CHRISTIE’S have denied rumours that they plan to give notices to quit to their gallery leaseholders in Ryder and Bury Streets, St James’s, so that they can redevelop the premises.

UK: THE Professional Football Association was the successful bidder for L.S. Lowry’s crowd scene Going to the Match at Sotheby’s London last Wednesday, setting the record for the highest auction price for a Modern British painting at £1.75m

US: AT Christie’s East in New York on November 27, in a sale which reinforced 20th century design as a major market mover, this moulded plywood sculpture by Ray and Charles Eames, dated 1943 and 3ft 11/2in (95cm) high, established a world record price of $330,000 (£206,250) for the designers, selling to a specialist Eames collector.

UK: International bidders tuned into proceedings at Canterbury Auction Galleries on October 2, 1999 in the prospect of acquiring one of the earliest ship-to-shore receivers, illustrated right, manufactured in 1908 by the founding father of commercial radio communication – Guglielmo Marconi.