Auctioneers

Two strong results for very different pieces were produced in Christie’s double bill of English furniture on April 24.

A BATTERED old Bible in a strongbox with a woodcut pasted on the inside of the lid was sold with a boxed rosary for £6200 by auctioneer Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on March 9. Behind it there was quite a story.

Christie’s are confidently expecting to set a new auction record for British furniture in London on June 18 when they offer a small but exclusive auction of just a dozen lots under the title 12: Exceptional furniture.

A world record price for a comic-strip illustration was paid at a specalist sale at Artcurial in Paris on March 29: Georges Remi Hergé’s 1932 ink-and-gouache design for the cover of Tintin en Amérique.

London’s latest series of Islamic auctions, held from April 7-11, produced a series of record-breaking statistics. The result of the week came at Sotheby’s on April 9 when a 14 1/2in (37cm) long iron and copper key to the ka’ba, the holiest place in the Islamic world, sold for £8.2m, establishing a new auction high for any Islamic work of art.

NORTH Yorkshire saleroom Tennants, who have made a name selling the furniture of Robert Thompson, have secured an entire Mouseman commission for sale in July.

An image that may rewrite the history of photography has been withdrawn from a Sotheby’s New York sale pending further research.

HAVING conducted over 2000 sales, freelance auctioneer Noel Lynch is used to standing on a platform. But on May 1, he will be looking for votes rather than bids as he aims to win a seat in the London Assembly for the Green Party.

THREE bespoke Hardy reels were offered by Holts as part of their shooting sale at Princess Louise House, Hammersmith on March 20.

IT was the finest UK collection of antique fishing tackle to come to auction for a decade and it arrived via an unusual route.

A TOUCH of spring arrived in Dorchester on April 10-11 where amongst a number of five-figure prices at Duke’s two-day sale was this tiny watercolour of a branch of cherry blossom by the prolific Victorian theorist, critic and artist John Ruskin (1819-1900). Dated 1857, it is displayed here a fraction less than its actual size.

A pair of Dutch library globes by the man regarded as father of western globe making, Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), now rank the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in Holland.

A companion work to an August Bohm masterpiece has bought a house record to Gloucestershire firm Wotton Auction Rooms.

FRENCH culture minister Christine Albanel has announced a major overhaul of France’s auction system to meet President Sarkozy’s urgent call to “turn the French art market around”.

Semley Auctioneers have opened an office and reception at 97 Old Brompton Road, London SW7 3LD.

Kensington Church Street dealer Paul Reeves did a double-take at Sotheby’s earlier this month. As well as curating their March 20 mixed-owner decorative arts sale titled The Best of British, he also mounted a week-long selling exhibition of his own stock under the same title in their Bond Street Galleries.

It’s hard to believe there are still undiscovered works by the most renowned artists hanging unnoticed in dusty corners of private houses. But that is what a Christie’s valuation team discovered last year.

Sworders moved into their much-lauded new environmentally friendly saleroom on March 31.

The highlight of the Asia week series of auctions put on by the major salerooms was an impressive early Japanese wood sculpture of Buddha. It set a new auction high for a Japanese work of art when it was hammered down to the Japanese company Mitsukoshi Co Ltd for $12.8m (£6.7m) plus premium in Christie’s sale of Japanese and Korean art on March 18.

After five years of trading in Worthing, Gorringes have closed their saleroom on 44-46 High Street. In its place, one of their senior valuers will be opening up in his own name.