Auctioneers

DATES have been announced for the first collectors’ sales to be held at Sotheby’s Olympia by the company’s former in-house specialists, now working independently.

BOUGHT for a few pounds at a Surrey church bazaar within the last five years, this James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) pen and ink drawing, right, made a tidy profit for its vendor when it fetched a surprise £26,000 at Rosebery’s (15% buyer’s premium) Quarterly Select Auction in West Norwood, South East London.

WHILE Troika ceramics made up the first 150 lots at Burstow & Hewett’s (10% buyer's premium) March 17 sale, there was also more traditional fare on offer, such as this 9in (22cm) diameter pair of mid-18th century English (probably London) delft plates, right, each with a painted design of a cockerel and a flower in blue, green and orange.

THE strength of this Bearne’s (15/10% buyer's premium) March 2 & 3 Devon outing lay in the 72-lot furniture section, although the fairly routine ceramic selection was also notable for a high take-up by lot and some healthy prices. What turned out to be the two star furniture lots were given cautious catalogue entries and estimates which reflected a knowledge of the current wariness among specialists about the numbers of altered, or overly restored, pieces of furniture peppering the market.

As the most prolific of the 18th century English porcelain-producing factories, there is plenty of scope when it comes to collecting Worcester porcelain. There are few collectors, however, who can match the determination of Jeanne and Milton Zorensky.

This large and important Martin Brothers bird, pictured right and dated 1894, is the main highlight of a diverse sale of ceramics, glass, works on paper, furniture, textiles and metalware, relating to the Arts and Crafts movement inspired by William Morris, to be held at Woolley & Wallis' Salisbury Salerooms on May 26.

The 20in (52cm) high dinanderie vase by Jean Dunand, pictured, right, with original black patina and sleek Art Deco outlines belying its early date of 1913, zoomed to €60,000 (£40,000), five times the estimate, at the Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) sale of 20th century decorative arts on March 4.

The hangar saleroom at Christie’s South Kensington was full to overflowing for the much-publicised sale of the Poole Pottery Museum collection and archive on March 31.

WITH a style, as one writer has put it, “sweetly intensified to a point where the world is reduced to a world of gossamer”, Annie French (1872-1965) was a Glasgow School artist who took the Art Nouveau idiom of Beardsley and Burne-Jones to new decorative extremes.

WITH a name like the Old Picture Palace, the former cinema in Matlock that is the newly acquired saleroom of the Derby auctioneers Bamfords (15% buyer’s premium) should be the sort of venue where the more traditional end of the art market should feel at home.

THE first day of the March 13-14 angling sale held by Mullock Madeley at Ludlow Racecourse was devoted to the literature of the sport. Seen right is one of two complete runs of The Creel from the years 1963-67 that sold at £200 and £210. A set of all bar one of the ...How to Catch Them series, all in dust jackets and all bar the Pike book first editions, sold at £460.

Edward Tyson’s Orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris: Or, the anatomy of a pygmiecompared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man... was the first work to demonstrate scientifically the structural relationships between man and anthropoid ape and one which had a powerful influence on subsequent thoughts on man’s place in nature – albeit the orang-outang on which his work was based was actually a young chimpanzee.

CHEFFINS of Cambridge have joined the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers, swelling the association’s ranks of auction firm members to 34, including many of the biggest names in the business.

THE market for 19th century mahogany furniture remains, as Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert observed after Taylor & Fletcher, Humberts (10% buyer's premium) successful 455-lot mixed February 24 sale, extremely selective. But that is not a euphemism for moribund.

CHRISTIE'S have announced worldwide sales totalling £1.2bn ($2bn) for 2003. This includes auction sales of £1.1bn ($1.8bn) and private sales of £90m ($150m).

Few pieces of Victorian jewellery have survived in such sparkling condition as this Kashmir sapphire and diamond necklace which sold at Dreweatt Neate’s Donnington Priory saleroom near Newbury last week for £240,000 (plus 15/10% premium) – the highest ever price for jewellery at a provincial saleroom.

A letter written and signed by Jean Harlow, which reveals an unexpectedly sensitive side to Hollywood’s original Blonde Bombshell, will go on sale at Byrne’s of Chester on Wednesday (March 31).

YOU don’t see detailed architectural scenes that often on English porcelain. Such pieces are much more the preserve of Continental factories like Meissen, Sèvres or, most notably, Berlin. Their smooth, hard paste provides a better ground for the highly detailed, crisp painting these subjects demand. However, if topography is to be found on English porcelain, it is most likely be encountered on wares from the Derby factory which came nearest to emulating the Continental firms.

GRANTHAM auctioneers Golding Young, like many provincial operations, are changing their sales format this year, moving from specific “antique” sales and “general” sales to more inclusive events to meet the changing scene.

WEEKLY antique valuation days at their recently opened estate agency in Welshpool have begun to pay dividends for Shrewsbury-based auctioneers Halls (15% buyer's premium), and specialist Jeremy Lamond hopes that the firm’s presence there will help broaden their Welsh client base.