Europe

IRISH auctioneers have long been adamant that Irish pictures sell better in Ireland and certainly the 71 per cent sold by lot achieved at James Adam (15% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on May 29 was only just shy of the 76 per cent by lot selling rate taken at Christie’s Irish sale in London on May 17.

THIS most unusual looking beast is expected to be the star lot at a sale to be held in Paris on July 4 at a most unusual location, the pagoda-like Maison Chinoise, rue de Courcelles, Paris 8.

Jean Goulden (1878-1947) was another name restored to pre-eminence at the Tajan sale on 28 May. Goulden belonged to the Groupe Dunand–Goulden–Jouve–Schmied and himself underwrote the exhibitions the group staged annually at the Galerie Georges-Petit in Paris from 1921 to 1933.

THE Hôtel Drouot, traditional home of Parisian auctions, will not now be sold, it has been announced. Following the withdrawal of all four bids after none could surmount difficulties in negotiating a sale, the auctioneers who own the Drouot have raised €71m (approx £45m) and set up a management company, Drouot Holding, to run it – although not its finances – with seven of their number on the board.

There was a French auction record for Sèvres under the Ferri (17.94%/ 11.96% buyer’s premium) gavel at Drouot on May 24 when the large Empire period fuseau vase, shown here, was offered for sale.

La Guérison de l’Epiléptique, 3ft x 2ft 4in (91 x 70cm), pictured right, by André Bauchand (c.1927), based on Raphael’s Transfiguration, sold on low-estimate for €3800 (£2450) at Blanchet (17.94% buyer’s premium) on May 15, partly reflecting the indifferent condition of its paintwork.

THE National Library of Ireland has acquired a sprawling collection of manuscripts by James Joyce, which remained hidden for nearly 60 years after being concealed from the Nazis.They include a total of some 700 pages in six notebooks, 16 drafts from Ulysses and typescripts and proofs of Finnegans Wake.

MAJOR players from the English and Continental clock trade travelled to Dublin on May 1 for the sale of this important and rare 19th century ormolu-cased French automaton clock, right, at O’Reilly’s (15% buyer’s premium).

After Modern art specialist Francis Briest and Claude Aguttes of suburban Neuilly, Hervé Poulain and Rémy Le Fur have become the latest auctioneers to join Artcurial.

Insurance giants AXA and Barclays Private Equity have withdrawn their offers to buy Drouot. In a statement issued on May 13, AXA said that their €82m offer, tabled on March 21, was to be “considered null and void, given the difficulty in obtaining the support of a majority of commissaires-priseurs”.

BONHAMS have unveiled a network of representatives across Europe whose job will be to bring in new business and ensure continuity of service for clients.

FOLLOWING the cancellation of Salon de Mars 2002 owing to a dispute with the venue over a clash with other fixtures, its organisers Association ARES have dissolved and Salon de Mars is no more.

RESPONDING to the rise and rise of interest in 20th century design Le Salon du XXeme Siecle will be launched in Paris from June 6 to 9 at Le Carrousel du Louvre.

Jewellery and silver enthusiasts were catered for in Ireland as well as Wiltshire during April as private buyers flocked to O’Reilly’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of gemstones and silver in Dublin on April 10.

Oriental art dealer Christian Deydier has been voted in as the new president of the France’s Syndicat National des Antiquaires (National Dealers’ Association) in Paris, defeating book dealer Claude Blaizot by 10 votes to 6. Outgoing president Dominique Chevalier, recently injured in a motorcycle accident, did not stand for re-election.

SWITZERLAND: A mammoth four-day mixed sale of just under 2700 lots was held in Zürich by Galerie Koller (18%/16%/12% buyer’s premium) from March 19–23. This comprised furniture, carpets, decorative arts, jewellery, clocks, fine art and books and the auctioneers felt that the results confirmed the stability of the market for material of the best quality.

A pair of ornamental blue and gold vases made by the Manufacture Impériale in St Petersburg (c.1825-30) soared to €520,000 (£335,000) at Beaussant-Lefèvre on April 10.

NAPOLEONIC MEMORABILIA (£1 = €1.62): A sale entitled L’Empire à Fontainebleau confirmed the evergreen appeal of Napoleonic memorabilia at Osenat, Fontainebleau (17.94/13.16% buyer’s premium) on March 10, where one of the last linen shirts worn by Napoleon on St Helena was offered for sale.

ITALY: Spring has been slow to bring a little sunshine to the auction world in Italy, with rather lacklustre sales for Finarte and Semenzato’s opening moves. It will remain to be seen whether the scandal that has enveloped Corbelli, majority shareholder of Semenzato and chairman of Finarte, will affect the performance of the auction houses (that are not accused of any wrongdoing) in the more important sales later in the season.

The elegant Château d’Enghien, 30 kilometres south west of Brussels, will once again play host to the Belgium ceramics fair next month, from May 1-5.