Auctioneers

DANIELLA Luxembourg has launched her own private art dealership, Luxembourg Art, after selling her stake in auction house Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg to partner Simon de Pury.

THE figures after Louis Taylor's (12.5% buyer's premium) March 8 & 9 sale at the Hanley salerooms added to auctioneer Clive Hillier’s belief that the whole antiques scene is considerably brighter now than it was last year. “The sale went better than I expected and comes on top of our generally weekly sales regularly totalling £20,000 to £25,000 against the £12,000-15,000 they used to take,” he said.

NOT every auctioneer, and certainly not every dealer, is happy with the coverage given to the antiques trade on television, but Norfolk auctioneers Holts (15% buyer's premium), who hold their specialist sales of antique and sporting guns in the suitably militaristic Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea, have cause to be grateful for one TV series.

THREE large Art Deco plaster panels, two details shown right, which had lain unseen and unloved in the basement of a London property for years, had an extraordinary appeal which eluded both their owners and cataloguers judging by their reception at Wotton Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium).

ALTHOUGH there were no blockbusters at the 778-lot February 20 sale at Charterhouse (15% buyer's premium), neither were there many casualties, with 86 per cent of the sale finding buyers.

The well-worn cliché about everyone in the trade wanting to buy the same few pictures was certainly in evidence at the March 9 sale of British and Continental pictures at Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) at Knightsbridge when this highly commercial oil-on-canvas view of the Piazzatta, Venice, indistinctly signed Viviani, came under the hammer with a highly tempting estimate of £2000-3000.

THE large number of increasingly wealthy mainland Chinese dealers and collectors participating in UK auctions are pushing up the prices in certain sectors of the market, including 19th century Chinese-taste ceramics. In the past this area has largely been overlooked in favour of imperial porcelain from earlier periods, but with the best 18th century mark and period routinely commanding six-figure sums, 19th century ceramics must look good value for money.

WHETHER it was coincidence or whether they were reaping the benefit from their new marketing strategy, David Duggleby (15% buyer's premium) noted a definite rise in business at their 347-lot quarterly outing on February 23 when buyers were found for 85 per cent of entries.

HELPED by both the input of new collectors and the appearance on the market of some good pieces, Troika pottery certainly experienced renewed interest in 2003.

Shown right are two highlights from the sale conducted by John Bellman (15% buyer’s premium) of Newpound, Wisborough Green, on February 18.

IT is always in the interest of auctioneers and the trade to talk the market up, but there does seem to be a general consensus among auctioneers that business this year so far has got off to a frisky start.

Lyon & Turnbull’s 110-lot private collection did not just comprise Scottish silver, but also silver of Scottish interest. Among the more idiosyncratic elements in the catalogue was this allegorical Jacobite snuffbox, right.

Right: this 17th century stumpwork jewellery casket will be the highlight of the first sale of antique rugs and textiles at the Netherhampton Salerooms. The auction will be put together by the team responsible for the regular specialist sales at Woolley & Wallis – the only sales of their type outside London – that ended in February.

KIDSON-Trigg (15% buyer's premium) reported a healthy turnout for their 725-lot February 26 sale with steady interest for collectable ceramics such as Beswick and the better-quality furniture attracting a mixture of local and UK private and trade buyers.

THE rarest and probably the earliest piece of printing in a February 26 sale held by Pacific Book Auctions of San Francisco, the papal indulgence from Wynkyn de Worde’s press seen right, was bid to $13,000 (£6890), but there were some other early items in the collection of editions of Aesop’s Fables formed by the late Dr Margaret Rose Quentin that opened the auction.

From April 1 Bonhams will increase the buyer’s premium in their Knightsbridge rooms to bring it in line with that charged at Bond Street.

FIFTEEN or so years ago works by the likes of Helen Allingham (1848-1926) and the Stannards of Bedfordshire had the sweet smell of success all over them. However, in more recent times the general consensus is that watercolours of this genre, which I loosely describe as “roses round the cottage door”, have slipped from favour.

Illustrated in colour on the catalogue cover of Clevedon Salerooms’ March 4 sale was a watercolour described as being by Richard Parkes Bonington (1801-1828).

JUST two of the 600 or so lots that made up a March 2 sale of books and prints held by John Nicholson of Fernhurst, Surrey, managed four figure bids – a binding and a postcard album.

ALTHOUGH Derwent Lees (1885-1931) is recorded in reference books, such as the Handbook of Modern British Painting and Print-making 1900-1990, published by Ashgate, he is not that well known outside specialist trade circles.