Christie's

Twice a year Russian silver and icons are included in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) routine miniature and vertu sales and it was the 44-lot Russian silver section that saw some of the most consistent bidding in this 587-lot July 15 outing.

A BASIC clerical error seems certain to delay compensation payments linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price fixing settlement, it has emerged. At least in some cases, the figures quoted in forms sent out notifying claimants of their entitlements have been transcribed in dollars rather than in sterling.

Hawk-eyed dealers scouring the London rooms in July for Asian sleepers would have been rewarded by a trip to Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) Asian Decorative Arts 586-lot sale on July 10.

Christie’s have announced worldwide sales totalling £589m ($947m) for the first six months of 2003, again laying claim to the title of the world’s leading auction house. This compares with a dollar total for the same period last year of $989m, a fall of just over four per cent. Of this, auction sales make up £549m ($883m) and private sales £40m ($64m).

HONG KONG ASIAN SALES : When SARS broke out in Asia earlier this year, Sotheby’s decided to hold their Asian auction series in Hong Kong as planned in April, but Christie’s postponed their Hong Kong sales until early July. Sotheby’s may not have registered the same levels of Western interest in their two fine Chinese sales on April 27 (the combined 281 lots totalled a premium-inclusive HK$106,481,440), but like Christie’s, they reported increased mainland Chinese buying.

ITALY: MORE than 440 lots of silver and Russian works of art were offered at Christie’s (24-18.5% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) sale in Rome on June 12, of which slightly less than half sold.

ONE of the most provocative icons of the British Pop Art movement is Allen Jones’ (b.1937) Table. The original 1969 version of this work – listed in Volker Kahmen’s Eroticism in Contemporary Art as being in the Collection Ludwig, Aachen – was an uncompromising fetish object showing the life-size model naked apart from her leather boots, gloves and bodice gazing at herself in a mirror.

A Massachusetts auction house is being sued for breach of contract and malpractice after a Chinese vase it sold for $23,000 returned to auction six months later at Christie’s Hong Kong where it brought $1.55m.

Dollar rate deters American teddy bear enthusiasts: Daniel Agnew, the teddy bear specialist at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), felt the market was a bit softer than usual for the first of his bi-annual teddy sales on June 10.

Some huge prices were paid for Du Paquier porcelain last week at Christie’s when the auctioneers offered a single-owner collection of predominantly Austrian and German porcelain in their July 7 sale of Continental ceramics.

20TH CENTURY Decorative Arts in New York: American museums are not so squeamish about deaccessioning as British ones and Christie’s New York (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) headlined its 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on June 12 with 52 lots of Tiffany from the Museum of Modern Art.

Many in the art world will know of Professor E. T. ‘Teddy’ Hall through his work in archaeometry, the science used to establish the age and origins of much of the world’s ancient art and artefacts, using tests such as thermoluminescence.

Sotheby’s and Bonhams routinely include sections of Export porcelain in their general Chinese sales but Christie’s specialist Caroline Allen devotes her time solely to this field and it is an area she is keen to develop. To this end, Christie’s</b? (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) gave her the go-ahead to present a single-owner collection of European-subject Export porcelain in an individual catalogue even though it was never going to be a big money-spinning, seven-figure collection.

THERE was a greater concentration of Chinese Export porcelain at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) than at either of the other two houses with a single- owner collection of European-subject Export ware offered in a separate catalogue on June 17 and a private collection of famille verte porcelain in mixed condition that was 99 per cent sold by lot and by value, included in their mixed-owner sale on the same day.

Even as the million-pound Impressionist and Modern pictures were being knocked down in their King Street saleroom last week, Christie’s were reconfirming their commitment to the currently troubled middle market sector.

A bunch of flowers sold to a private buyer brought a welcome fragrance for Christie’s (24-18.5% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) in their auction of Modern and Contemporary Art in Milan on May 26, and proved a powerful attraction, with a full room and numerous bidders on the telephone.

Christie’s have helped negotiate the sale to the Victoria and Albert Museum of the Castlereagh gold inkstand created by Paul Storr and Philip Rundell for the British diplomat Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) in 1818.

Christie’s South Kensington : May 15 was a crowded day in the Decorative Arts calendar. Both Christie’s South Kensington and Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms fielded sizeable decorative arts selections, much of it of crossover interest, which presumably presented potential buyers with something of a dilemma when it came to deciding which sale to attend in person.

Christie’s are to relocate their education arm from King Street to new premises in the Fitzrovia area of London. The current building, number 5 King Street that was the former Spink premises, will undergo refurbishment in the summer. While the upper floors are expected to remain Christie’s offices, a decision will be made in the near future as to the use of the prime retail space below.

CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).