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Art of Dealing suggests way ahead for the art and antiques industry, and how to pay for it

AT this year’s CINOA General Assembly, held in New York from May 12 to 14, delegates representing dealers associations from more than 20 countries discussed two political areas which they felt threatened the international art market.

Sotheby’s sale of a sizeable slice of the contents Easton Neston, the English Baroque country house that has been home of the Fermor-Hesketh family since it was built in 1699, raised a premium-inclusive £8.7m last week when the auctioneers offered 1472 lots over two days in a marquee on the grounds from May 17-19.

François Tajan, who quit as chairman of Tajan SA, the firm founded by his father Jacques, at the end of March, has joined Paris rivals ArtCurial.

London antique dealers Mallett’s of New Bond Street have been awarded €111,533 (£80,000) by the Irish High Court after suing an Irish dealer over a stolen bureau bookcase.

New student admissions to the BA (Hons) Fine Arts Valuation degree course are being suspended for at least a year as the Southampton Institute conducts an extensive internal review of its Faculty of Media, Arts and Society.

Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull have secured one of Scotland’s key art collections for sale in January 2006.

Certainly the most eye-catching lot offered by Lincoln saleroom Thos. Mawer and Son (15% buyer’s premium) on April 23 was this carved bone or ivory model of a 1940s Raleigh Roadster bicycle.

Classic English furniture continues to bring good prices at auction providing the quality is there – and this Regency sofa table, right, certainly filled that requirement when it was offered at the March 3 sale in Cornwall held by Bonhams Par (17.5% buyer’s premium).

SOTHEBY’S auction and related revenues rose by more than 20 per cent, year on year, for the first quarter of 2005, coming in at $72.2m.

THE scientific tests stacked up. The catalogue description was fair. The buyer got what she paid for. But somehow Christie’s still managed to lose the High Court action brought by special client Taylor Lynne Thomson.

Andrew Hartley, Ilkley. Buyer’s premium: 10 per centSOME high individual prices but, for West Yorkshire auctioneers Andrew Hartley, an unusually high casualty rate of 29 per cent… “It was a very patchy market,” said Mr Hartley summing up what so many auctioneers are finding.

A NUMBER of niche sales in spring once again showed why they are a matter of some envy among other auctioneers whose offerings are far more vulnerable to contrary winds of fashion and the general economy.

ARMS and armour sales, which themselves encompass a myriad special interests, are another area with their own micro-economy impervious to whatever wild winds are blowing in the wider market.

LONDON antique dealers Malletts are waiting to hear whether a Dublin dealer will have to pay them more than £100,000 in compensation over a stolen 18th century bureau bookcase.

A CHESS sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions on April 14 included a small book section in which a 1745 edition of Philip Stamma’s The Noble Game of Chess, the half calf gilt bindings of the two vols. now a bit loose, sold at £920.

IS this an unusual high-shouldered oviform vase or a jar missing its cover? Was it made in the Qianlong period (1736-95) or does it date to the Emperor Jiaqing’s reign (1796-1820).

Christie's New York (10/12% Buyer's premium)SNUFF bottles vary enormously in quality and price but the J&J collection has to rank as one of the world’s foremost specialist holdings. Although these exquisitely made and highly decorative vessels have a following of strong international collectors, inevitably there are limited buyers for top-end imperial quality works.

“IT was the power of the press that did it,“ said a red-faced, but delighted, auctioneer Michael Perry of Capes Dunn & Co. (15% buyer’s premium). News has only recently filtered down to the ATG of a spectacular result posted by the Manchester auctioneers back on February 22.

THE piece with star billing at Bonhams’ April 21 Antiquities auction was the dramatic white marble group, shown here, even meriting its own separate hardback catalogue.