Dreweatts

There was some good old fashioned saleroom drama at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions in Newbury yesterday when a moai kavakava style figure, estimated to bring just £400-600, sold at £95,000. The buyer in Berkshire was from Australia.

Troubled collectables firm Stanley Gibbons has promised investors it is close to a “turning point” after more than a year of major upheaval.

The UK’s regional salerooms turned up a series of six-figure objects during the first of two weeks of designated Asian art sales.

Auction group Dreweatts & Bloomsbury will close their Maddox Street premises next year to focus on a new London location in Pall Mall.

Pall Mall is known for its members clubs but The Fine Art Auction Group, parent company of Dreweatts-Bloomsbury and Mallett, are to set up a London hub on the street in a bid to relaunch their interiors business.

Rupert Powell has resigned as deputy chairman of Bloomsbury Auctions where he has worked for 31 years. He will work out a notice period.

Despite some welcome exceptions, 2015 proved a unspectacular year for Britain and Ireland’s regional fine art auctioneers with one in three salerooms experiencing a fall in sales.

A new senior management team has been appointed to take on responsibility for the group of businesses that includes Dreweatts, Baldwin’s and Mallett, ATG has learned.

Dreweatts are to offer 14 boxes from an important American collection of 18th and 19th century European gold boxes as part of a December 3 sale titled Iconic Jewels & Treasures.

Simon de Pury’s sale of the Lambert collection, trailed as a litmus test for high-end digital auctions, will now be conducted as a bricks and mortar event from the rostrum at King Street.

Auctioneers Dreweatts-Bloomsbury are to make increasing use of Ely House – Mallett’s showroom on Dover Street – as their primary London sale venue.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, part of the Stanley Gibbons/Noble Investment stable of companies, have boosted their expertise further with a recruitment drive.