News topics

Christie’s have helped negotiate the sale to the Victoria and Albert Museum of the Castlereagh gold inkstand created by Paul Storr and Philip Rundell for the British diplomat Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822) in 1818.

Christie’s South Kensington : May 15 was a crowded day in the Decorative Arts calendar. Both Christie’s South Kensington and Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms fielded sizeable decorative arts selections, much of it of crossover interest, which presumably presented potential buyers with something of a dilemma when it came to deciding which sale to attend in person.

The second birthday of the Gazette’s web site (it was officially launched in May 2001) saw its usage rise to new heights with over 2 million hits and nearly 300,000 pages viewed in a single week.

A rare Joseph Wright of Derby mezzotint valued at £9500 was stolen from prints and maps dealer Sanders of Oxford on June 3. At around 4.00pm two white men entered the shop. Both were in their late 40s, one 5ft 7in high of stocky build with short, dark grey hair, the other slightly taller with balding, brown, short hair.

LAPADA has issued some valuable guidelines to the recipients of cheques relating to the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price-fixing settlement in the USA. As the cheques began to arrive by post last week many were surprised to see that the US Federal Government had deducted a withholding tax from the awards.

Every dealer has one – a painful story to relate about some rare and valuable object they let pass fleetingly through their hands at a knock-down price only to learn later of its true significance and value.

A Directory of Scottish Provincial Silversmiths & Their Marks by Richard W Turner, published by the author, 208 Roundhills, Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 lUN. Tel: 01992 610325 email: richardwturner@ntlworld.com ISBN 1850722935 £18(sb) plus £1pp, UK

Apparently consigned for sale by a local lady who had no idea of its commercial potential – it had been acquired as holiday reading when she was a young girl – a 1937 first edition of The Hobbit was sold at £10,300 in a general antiques sale held by Fieldings in Hagley, Worcester-shire, on April 26.

CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).

Sussex Silver and its Makers, by Timothy Kent, published by JH Bourdon-Smith Ltd. Copies (sb) available at £23 plus £1.50 postage, UK, from JH Bourdon-Smith Ltd at 24 Mason’s Yard, Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU. Tel: 020 7839 4714

The ARTS & CRAFTS section of the most recent of the 20th Century Art & Design sales to be held in Cincinnati by Treadway & Toomey Galleries partnership on May 3 kicked off with a Gustave Stickley dining table at $12,000 (£7360), and Stickley pieces of all shapes and sizes popped up regularly thereafter.

Exploring Prehistoric & Roman England, by Barry Marsden, published by Greenlight Publishing, 119 Newland Street, Witham, Essex CM8 lWF. Tel: 01376 521900. email: info@greenlightpublishing.co.uk ISBN 1897738 £15sb

Treasures of the American Arts and Crafts Movement 1890-1920 by Tod M. Volpe, Beth Cathers and Alistair Duncan published by Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0500284083 £18.95 (sb)

A man who had a 17th century Dutch panel painting stolen from his home more than 20 years ago has failed in an Appeal Court to win compensation from Christie’s, who offered the picture for sale in 1997. Key to the test case was Christie’s ability to show they had acted in good faith, adding further legal weight to the importance of due diligence.

One of several items consigned to Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury by descendants of the 7th and 9th Dukes of Newcastle for sale on May 13, this Regency mahogany centre table with profusely carved trestle supports in the manner of Thomas Hope surprised auctioneer and vendor alike when it breezed past its £800-1200 estimate to sell for £57,000 (plus 15/10 per cent buyer’s premium).

HOPEFULLY with a host of international collectors and dealers in town for the fairs, there is business to be achieved back at the London shops, and a number of them will be mounting special selling exhibitions during June.

This portrait in oils depicts Willie Park Senior of Musselburgh who won the very first Open Championship held at Prestwick Golf Club in 1860. Painted by an unidentified hand c.1860, when Park first leapt to fame (he won the championship again in 1863, 1866 and 1875), it is believed to be the only known contemporary portrait of a 19th century Open golf champion.

It seems that in terms of arriving in numbers after none has been seen for ages, novelty lighthouse cocktail shakers are to Yorkshire what No. 9 buses are to central London. In Antiques Trade Gazette No.1589 dated May 17 we illustrated just such a silver-plated shaker which took £1250 at Andrew Hartley’s Ilkley, West Yorkshire sale on April 9-10.

It was a poignant irony that the contents of the North Hampshire vineyard that had so impressed Her Majesty should come up for auction in the same month that another offering of Château Mouton-Rothschild was making a less than favourable impression with the British establishment.

“Mr Woilde, we ’ave come for tew take yew Where felons and criminals dwell: We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly For this is the Cadogan Hotel.” These lines by John Betjeman form part of a poem that marks one of the most notorious incidents in late Victorian society – The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.