Auctioneers

PHILLIPS de Pury look to have taken another step to increase their influence as a major player in London’s contemporary art market by forming a new partnership with The Saatchi Gallery.

This summer has seen a spate of sleepers awoken in provincial salerooms, but inevitably the one that grabbed the headlines in the national press was the tale of the rediscovered ‘Titian’.

Christie’s confirm new sale categories

This summer the annual staff-exhibition at Sotheby’s is entitled No Limits and includes 40 paintings, photographs, pieces of sculpture and jewellery by members of Sotheby’s staff.

In celebration of Fellows & Sons’ 130th anniversary, students and practising goldsmiths were invited by the Birmingham-based auctioneers to submit a design for a piece of utilitarian silver.

When the Dorchester Fine Art saleroom Duke’s sold two rediscovered panels of Dominican saints by Fra Angelico for £1.7m, it was one of the best documented events outside the London rooms accompanied by months of pre-sale media coverage.

One of the quirkier and more unusual offerings to feature in Christie’s £3.7m sale of English furniture and works of art on June 7 was this rare Elizabethan map fragment, one of the first tapestries ever produced in England.

In the 1950s, a farmer in Ingatestone, Essex found a tiny silver tag measuring just 3/4in (1.8cm) long on his farm. Shaped like a shield with a ring, one side was engraved LORD RICH above a stylised bird and the other featured a family crest.

Auctioneers are not just there for the bad things in life. It was in 2006 that Salisbury firm Woolley & Wallis were contacted by Sheffield silversmith C.J. Vander, a company in administration with stock to liquidate.

Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis are to sell the collection of early English, Scottish and Irish silver belonging to the well-known London dealership How.

Christie's lose showpiece sale as Prince Charles steps in to help seal £45m deal

Bonhams are to take advantage of Sotheby’s decision to end Japanese sales by recruiting their top specialist and consultant.

Phillips de Pury & Company are to launch a new website – separate from its core brand – in the hope of capitalising on the growing interest in Contemporary art and modern design.

Bonhams will be hosting an event with The Antique Collectors Club to announce their forthcoming publication Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840, Cabinet Makers and International Merchants, a furniture and business history.

IT’S not often that eight sheets of paper bring out eight telephone bidders, but that was the case at Mallams’ sale in Oxford on June 8. Yet these were no ordinary scraps. They were, in fact, important pieces of architectural history.

THE market for early English portrait miniatures received a sizeable fillip in London last week. The auction record was broken twice within the space of 24 hours with the sale of two iconic images of major figures in British history and this was backed up by a crop of other strong prices for top flight examples from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Just a month after their most successful sale ever, thanks to the consignment of an archive of Francis Bacon’s work, Woking auctioneers Ewbank’s have won another Bacon collection.

FOR more than a decade, Dorset saleroom Cottees have held biannual sales dedicated to Poole pottery. The most latest event had the sad distinction of being the first since the closure of the Poole Pottery just before Christmas.

The highlight of the Oriental sale conducted by Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on May 22 was this underglaze copper-red Qianlong (1736-1795) mark and period moonflask standing 11in (27cm) high.

Not one but two international auction houses conducted sales series in Hong Kong in May.