Auctioneers

ON what was a mixed day for furniture sales at Lyon & Turnbull when one or two very elegant pieces failed to get away, there was a deal of interest at the Edinburgh salerooms in this rather unprepossessing George III mahogany writing cabinet on stand, right.

Christies South Kensington (20/12% buyer’s premium)ARGUABLY the strongest performance in the scientific instruments section of Christie’s South Kensington’s sale was provided by this pearwood table compass by John Harrison (1693-1776) pictured right.

Morphets, Harrogate, March 10. Buyer’s premium: 15/10 per cent A BIDDING duel by specialist arms and armour dealers was the highlight of Morphets’ 628-lot Yorkshire auction.

LAST week’s ATG included a short piece on a 1566 poem by Patrick Adamson, giving thanks for the birth of a son to Mary Queen of Scots, that made £3100 in a Dominic Winter sale of April 6.

The beginning of the end is in sight to the lengthy compensation payment process in the ‘international’ tranche of the Sotheby’s-Christie’s price-fixing case.

Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull have announced substantial changes to their buyer’s premium structure.

Thanks to a lively book trade and the introduction of new departments, turnover at Bloomsbury Auctions has increased by 38 per cent in the first quarter of 2005 compared to the same period in 2004.

Capping a sell-out sale of the first instalment of a private collection of nutmeg graters at Woolley and Wallis on April 20 was this unusual Victorian novelty specimen fashioned as a hinged strawberry, which sold for £8200.

SPECIAL Auction Services, the West Berkshire auctioneers best known for regular sales of commemoratives and pot lids, are themselves on the market.

Christie’s have joined the throng of western companies opening offices in Dubai.

IT was a matter of success breeding success for Oxfordshire auctioneers Holloway’s in March. Late last year they sold an 18th century ivory bust, possibly of Handel, for £29,000, and when the owner of a tiny medieval ivory panel read of it in ATG No 1671, January 8, he decided to offer it in the Banbury rooms.

Expertise rewarded, a surprise (and happy) ending and just a touch of regret... the story of an unassuming set of four late 19th/early 20th century chairs, one shown right, offered by Greenslade Taylor Hunt (15% buyer’s premium) at Taunton on March 15, was the very stuff of auctioneering romance.

CERAMICS SALES IN FRANCE £1 = €1.44A collection of drink-related objects and another devoted to Italian Renaissance maiolica were two very different single-owner properties on offer on the same day at the Paris auction house ArtCurial (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) last month.

THERE have already been two major sales at Dix Noonan Webb (DNW) (15% buyer’s premium) this year. The first concerned war medals and took place on March 2.

The regular sales of costume and textiles at Christie’s South Kensington (20/12% buyer’s premium) occasionally produce surprises. What seemed to be a sleeper in their March 15 sale was the mid-late 18th century linen court petticoat shown here. It was made from four oval split cane wooden hoops and half hoops on the hips for extra width, suggesting that it was intended for the most formal occasions.

TRADITIONAL British pictures have not been one of the strongest areas of the art market in the last couple of years, with sporting paintings being particularly stuck in the doldrums.

TWO long-term directors of auctioneers Rosebery's are to leave southeast London to pursue a career offering antiques themed breaks from a Pyrenean château.

Right: this handsome reticulated porcelain vase and cover by George Owen was the highlight of a private and local collection of Royal Worcester porcelain sold by Glasgow auctioneers McTear’s on March 25.

A SMALL Renoir portrait painted in 1913, with an estimated value of €170,000-200,000 (£120,000-140,000), was stolen from the Tajan premises in Paris shortly before it was to be offered at a sale on March 31.

In 2001 international connoisseurial interest and commercial hype accompanied a major exhibition and accompanying book on the Belgian ceramicist Charles Catteau (1880-1966). There are signs that the market is now beginning to mature – minor Boch Frères works by Catteau were very soft at Bonhams in London on March 1 – but Brussels auctioneers Horta were able to offer a major signed studio piece by the artist on March 21-22.