Auctioneers

The volume of artist Louis Wain’s distinctive ceramic animals making a sudden appearance on the market has raised the possibility that some could be reproductions or fakes. Seven have been offered at various UK salerooms in the last month, while two suspect examples have already been pulled from a Bonhams sale.

Lyon & Turnbull are to turn the buyer’s premium system on its head by raising it for top-tier prices but cutting it for lower-priced lots in general sales.

Gloucestershire auctioneers Simon Chorley began their autumn season on September 18, selling this Louis XIV ebony, ivory and tortoiseshell cabinet for £65,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer's premium).

Bonhams Oxford are to leave the city centre in favour of new premises in a village just north of the city.

Christie’s have announced the exact dates and location for the Paris sale of the collection put together by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. It will be held jointly by two auction houses, Christie’s and Pierre Bergé & Associates, on February 23, 24 and 25 next year.

MEDIA interest in the Pietro Psaier controversy saw members of the national press in attendance at John Nicholson’s Fernhurst rooms on September 24 for the sale of 235 artworks.

Quarterly sales of modestly-priced art and antiques, which were introduced for the first time this year by leading Shropshire auction house Halls, are to become a regular fixture in the company’s sales calendar.

As experienced art dealers discussed the £95.6m sale of 233 new works by Damien Hirst (b.1965), it was the word 'celebrity' that cropped up the most to explain the phenomenal prices seen at the Beautiful Inside my Head Forever sale.

CHRISTIE’S have announced that their sale of the joint stock of the two London dealerships Hotspur and Jeremy will be at a dedicated auction at their King Street rooms on November 20.

PRE-COLOMBIAN art valued at €5m in total was withdrawn from sale in Paris on September 12 after the last-minute intervention of the Mexican Embassy.

Trading Standards say they have received a number of complaints from unpaid consignors in the wake of the fine art sale held by Walker Barnett & Hill in June.

This large three-section glass panel was designed and made by Paul Jefferies at the Whitefriars factory in 1966.

Phillips de Pury’s Hip Hop Crown Jewels auction scheduled for October 1 in New York has been postponed until March 5, 2009.

Following a confidential agreement between the parties involved, the Fatimid rock crystal ewer ‘sold’ for £220,000 at Lawrences of Crewkerne will reappear at Christie’s next month with an estimate of over £3m.

Spink are to offer a £1m Treasury Note. Dated London 30 August 1948, and printed with the red serial number 000008, it is one of only two surviving examples from the nine thought to have been printed in connection with the Marshall Plan.

In October, South London auctioneers Rosebery’s will be conducting their inaugural auction in St James’s.

SUSSEX auctioneer John Nicholson has come forward with primary source evidence to establish the existence of artist Pietro Psaier and his links with Andy Warhol.

Neal Auction Company of New Orleans have now returned to the city after ten days away under mandatory hurricane evacuation orders and the loss of electrical services.