UK

The most recent of the three annual Olympia fairs, the Spring Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which runs at the West London exhibition halls from February 26 to March 3, is a mix of traditional and modern very much with the decorator in mind.

Pictured right is one of Twelve Angels, 9ft 10in (3m) high towering chairs made of dried branches that look like sinuous dancers. They are the work of Polish designer Dorota Koziara and three of these are among the more striking furniture forms to be found in CDA 2002, the 6th annual exhibition of Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design that opens at Sotheby’s Bond Street Galleries on February 20 and runs until March 1.

THIS first sale of the new year at the Staffordshire rooms Richard Winterton attracted a number of new buyers who were all in the area for the LAPADA fair at the nearby Birmingham NEC.

The Wiltshire rooms Woolley & Wallis usually hold four specialist carpet sales a year but a fifth was squeezed in before the scheduled Valentine’s Day event, and with a 77 per cent rate and £77,000 total on the 284 lots on offer, the decision by specialists June Barrett and Ian Bennett was more than justified.

A privately sourced collection of jewellery boosted this first dispersal of the year in these Hampshire rooms at George Kidner on 9 January – “the bulk of the rest of the material was just good stock pieces”, said auctioneer Andrew Reeves.

UK: Thornhill Galleries are a 120-year-old British company that specialise in architectural antique interior design. They make panelled rooms on commission in antique pine and seasoned hardwood and carry a wide stock of period fireplaces and accessories, garden statuary and other architectural features.

London’s first costume and textile sale of the year took place at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) at the end of January, the 318 lots netting just over £150,000 with an 87 per cent take-up by lottage, 89 in money.

The London art market received a major lift in the salerooms last week when Sotheby’s and Christie’s attracted remarkably strong levels of international demand for their February round of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions.

LAWYERS say that Sotheby’s and Christie’s can expect to face a £100m lawsuit over price-fixing at UK auctions within the next few weeks.

IN 1954 the painter and printmaker, Philip Reeves (born 1931), being interviewed for a post as a lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art, produced a letter of reference from the artist Robert Austin (1895-1973).

THE LAST 450 or so lots of a two-day general antiques sale on 6 December at Cheffins, Cambridge comprised books, many of them multiples.

The estimate of £25-35 placed on a second impression copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit was a reflection of its condition – “deplorable” being the cataloguer’s chosen epithet. There was no jacket and 20-30 leaves had been torn loose, one of which had been further torn into four (now three) pieces.

Exhibitions outside London: Specialist print dealer Elizabeth Harvey-Lee (1 West Cottage, Middle Aston Road, North Aston, Oxon OX25 5QB. Tel: 01869 34 7164) has built up an impressive reputation for producing informative, well-illustrated stock catalogues.

AUCTIONEER Mark Bowman is hardly the first auctioneer to be taken aback by the price achieved by a piece of Oriental porcelain, and not just at provincial rooms like his operation at the Wotton Auction Rooms (10% buyer’s premium).

THE antiques trade was hard hit last year and the Surrey auctioneers Ewbanks are finding that the current uncertain economic climate is stopping private vendors from consigning their property to sale.

New men at the rostrum bow in with aristocratic vendors and trade buyers: Short of a fine sale of antiques, a charity auction on 18 January was probably the best way that Bonhams could celebrate their takeover of Phillips’ old rooms in the capital.

There was no charitable quarter given to rival bidders when this plaster bust of General Charles Booth took centre stage at Duke’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) dispersal of the Timothy Rich collection of Staffordshire figures in Dorchester on January 24.

This was a busy sale at the Hagley community hall for Fieldings on 12 January with a good crosssection of material on offer attracting a good mixture of trade and private buyers.

LAST year’s United States class action against Sotheby’s and Christie’s over price fixing may now be followed by similar action in the UK. Dealers who missed out on the $512m compensation paid to settle the claims over US auctions will meet in London this week to plan a similar legal challenge in Britain.

MAYFAIR art dealers Agnew’s are hotly contesting claims for a £1.5m refund over an Old Master which is at the centre of a dispute over who painted it.