Print Edition

MADAM – Christopher Howe’s reminiscences and observations (‘Auction Giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s have turned this multicolour business into beige’, Letters, ATG No 2478) bring back happy memories.

MADAM – Having been dealing with European auction houses and art dealers for over 50 years, including the period before the introduction of ARR (Artist’s Resale Right), it is tragic to discover the only excuse that the negotiators can present for the continuation of this imposition is a ‘level playing field’ (News, ATG No 2476).

The Medals, Orders and Decorations sale at Morton & Eden in November featured two Victoria Crosses awarded during the Indian Mutiny. They sold to the same buyer for a combined hammer price of £300,000.

This silver penny struck for Ludeca, a short-lived king of Mercia who ruled from 826-7, was found at Combe Bissett, Wiltshire, in 2016.

Colchester auction house Reeman Dansie follows a policy of detailed cataloguing for Chinese art but modest estimates

Typical Charles Cooper Henderson coach scene rolls into Cheffins' saleroom

This canine portrait 'Minnay' by Edouard Manet (1832-83) will be offered for sale by Drouot Estimations on February 26.

MADAM – There is some hope for a replacement to the regrettable but understandable Covid-related closure of the Christie’s archives highlighted by the trade associations and the letter (ATG No 2476) from Mike Sanderson.

A recent Reeman Dansie sale in Colchester included 80 pieces from the estate of the well-known dealer Jane Sumner, who died last September at the age of 82.

A very early coloured litho view of Melbourne formed part of an Australiana sale held by dealer and auctioneer Peter Arnold (18% buyer’s premium).

This hitherto unrecorded work by the Jewish painter Morris Goldstein (1892-1965) is offered by the Nonesuch Gallery, priced at £5000.

MADAM - Re ‘Magna Carta Shines in Silver’, Auction Reports, ATG No 2476.

MADAM – It will come as no surprise that I, for one, wholeheartedly support the proposal from Kaye Michie (see Letters & Opinion, ATG No 2479) that the two antiques dealer associations, BADA and LAPADA, should be merged.

This Queen Anne (1702-14) five guineas piece from 1705 sold for £220,000 (estimate £100,000-120,000) to top the Stratos collection of English gold coins offered by Spink on September 15.

The Maas Gallery, well-known specialist in Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and Modern British pictures, is moving to larger premises in St James’s.

The Cluny Museum in Paris, dedicated to works of art from the Middle Ages, pre-empted two items in a Pierre Bergé & Associes sale of Haute Epoque in Paris.

MADAM – After a lifetime as an antiques dealer, one continuous theme I have noticed is that all my fellow traders have thousands of stories of there esoteric life. Some true and some enhanced for effect, but a real insight into our bizarre way of life.

MADAM – Further to Kaye Michie’s suggestion of merging our two antiques associations, I would like to say as a longstanding member and past council member of the BADA, shouldn’t now be the time the BADA council asked its membership for their views?

Clive Rogers, senior partner at Clive Rogers Oriental Rugs, specialises in antique Oriental and Occidental carpets and textiles from his base in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He is currently exhibiting at LARTA Virtual 2021 (until February 14).