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Latest art and antiques news from Antiques Trade Gazette. Browse by topics such as art finance, auctions, insurance and recruitment.

Secure buyers

01 September 2004

KNOWN for her stock of top-quality, early furniture with character, Lucy Johnson holds a special selling exhibition this weekend from September 3 to 5 at her showroom, a 17th century stone barn just outside Burford on the Cotswold Wildlife Park Estate, Oxfordshire.

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Howzat? Oak cricket table knocks £950

01 September 2004

Originality and patina are key factors in the price of oak furniture. Accordingly, it was no surprise to see the trade chase this austere George III elm cricket table at Richard Winterton (12.5% buyer’s premium) of Burton-on-Trent on July 28. Entered by a Birmingham client, the table, with its galleried undertier was in fine original condition with no later adaptations and the timber had acquired a good rich patina. It doubled the pre-sale estimate to bring £950.

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Wilde and a gift that he feared might lead to the perfection of poverty

01 September 2004

WHEN Oscar Wilde left Reading prison, Reggie Turner presented him with the gentleman’s black leather travelling or dressing case, seen right.

Jewels of the Monaco experience

01 September 2004

THE three-session, 630-lot jewellery section of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, with a chirpy attendance of 80-100 throughout, met a more convincing response than the Modern art, bringing €2.7m (£1.8m) hammer, including an aftersale €145,000 (£96,670) for a grey-gold ring with a fancy yellow, rectangular 29.57-carat diamond (estimate €200,000-250,000).

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The genius of Dresser 100 years on

01 September 2004

THE Victoria and Albert Museum’s main autumn exhibition, opening this month, is devoted to a retrospective of Christopher Dresser, the pioneering designer who anticipated many of the major design styles of the 20th century. It is timed to coincide with the centenary of his death in 1904.

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…and something to write home about from a duke

01 September 2004

THIS exquisite George III silver gilt inkstand, right, by John Houle was commissioned for the phenomenally wealthy William Harry Vane (1766-1842), the first Duke of Cleveland, whose estate and personal assets were valued well in excess of £2m.

Gazette award for Asian Art

01 September 2004

THE seventh annual Asian Art in London week will take place this year from November 4 to 12, with a launch party at the Victoria and Albert Museum on November 5.

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RMS Olympic fixtures come to auction

01 September 2004

SPECIALIST auctioneers, Ocean Liner Auctions have been instructed to sell what they consider to be the largest and finest collection of fixtures and fittings from RMS Olympic since the vessel was broken up almost 69 years ago.

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Stinton Junior is king of the castle

01 September 2004

FOR four generations, and more than 150 years, the Stinton family of porcelain painters were represented at the Worcester factories.

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Crow’s clear the cracked Deck

01 September 2004

ONE of the pioneers of the vogue for Japanese and Chinese design in the 1870s, Joseph Theodore Deck was also one of the first 19th century potters to explore Isnik floral designs and colour schemes. It was during his efforts to replicate the Turkish palette that he perfected the turquoise glaze that came to be known as bleu de Deck, or Deck blue.

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Will Pitcher be revealed to more marine fans now?

01 September 2004

DESPITE having success in his day, it seems a major oversight that marine artist Neville Sotheby Pitcher (1889-1959) does not make it into the specialist reference books such as E.H.H. Archibald’s The Dictionary of Sea Painters.

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Colourist provides new pastures for Meddowes in his role as art broker

01 September 2004

TURN the clock back some 30 years, and regulars to Bonhams’ Knightbridge rooms might just recall a rather dapper, pinstripe-suited auctioneer by the name of Alexander Meddowes.

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Why whistler may help Dandy outstrip The Beano

24 August 2004

LONDON-based Comic Book Postal Auctions hold several auction highs for British comics including, earlier this year, a world record £12,100 for The Beano No. 1. However, that remarkable price could well be threatened by this copy of The Dandy No. 1.

The Mouseman roars again

24 August 2004

JUNE was a busy month for Wellers (15% buyer's premium) who hosted an 819-lot antique sale on June 12 in addition to a 4000-lot two-day architectural auction held off the premises at Enfield’s Reclaim Centre on June 11-12.

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Sworders’ box of treats serves up banknote feast

24 August 2004

DURING an otherwise routine probabe valuation in a village near Saffron Walden, John Foster from Stansted Mountfitchet auctioneers Sworders discovered a box of coins tucked away in the back of a cupboard. On closer inspection he found an album of East Anglian banknotes which had probably been collected in the 1950s and 1960s for only a few pounds.

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The Reverend’s Erne and massed Scandinavians are among the best catches

24 August 2004

OFFERED as part of a large sports sale held by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh on July 12 was the angling and sporting library of Major Barton William-Powlett (1871-1953) of Cadhay in Devon.

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Rare design at Ilkley Salerooms

24 August 2004

FOLLOWING the sale of a Charlotte Rhead wall plate for an unexpected £2900 in October last year, the Ilkley, West Yorkshire salerooms of Andrew Hartley received another rare design by the industrial ceramicist for their sale of August 11-12.

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Police seek former gallery manager

24 August 2004

THAMES Valley Police urgently want to trace the man pictured right, in connection with a serious offence in Oxfordshire.

Masked gang strike at fair

24 August 2004

SIX masked raiders broke into the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire around 3am on the morning of Sunday August 15 and escaped with an estimated £400,000 worth of jewellery.

Jacques Tajan to quit as new owners make their mark

24 August 2004

JACQUES Tajan is set to quit Tajan S.A., the firm he founded in 1994, over disagreements with the firm’s new owner Rodica Seward.

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