UK

After a month’s hiatus, a number of top-tier regional auction houses are returning to the rostrum to conduct ‘live online’ sales.

Of all the sensational jewellery displayed by Tiffany at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle the most memorable was a group of 24 enamelled orchid brooches.

A silver penny of the boy king Edward the Martyr – the teenager who ruled Saxon Britain in the 10th century and was later venerated as a saint – has sold to a UK collector for £9000 at Dix Noonan Webb (24% buyer’s premium).

Following the success of the dedicated online sale of works from the collection of Old Masters dealer Rafael Valls, which more than tripled the high estimate to gross £1.6m (see Art Market in this issue), Sotheby’s will conduct its mid-season sale of Old Masters as an online event.

The London auction house holds its first online-only sale dedicated to a single dealer

Ken tanto, distinguished by double-edged blades, are one of the rarer styles of Japanese sword. Most were made as Buddhist ritual implements rather than weapons and are decorated accordingly.

Unlike in other parts of Europe where portraits of children were a rare phenomenon, the Dutch Republic experienced a rapid increase in this genre of painting between 1500-1700.

HMRC has warned the art market to be on alert for money laundering attempts during the coronavirus pandemic.

The sale at garden statuary specialist Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst on March 24 (the day after lockdown) was among the first conducted under new government restrictions on social distancing.

A recent sale conducted by Michael Bowman (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Newton Abbot, Devon was a homespun affair – held in the auctioneer’s house, with his wife handling phone and commission bids and two assistants operating the bidding platforms remotely by way of a loudspeaker mobile phone link.

The auction calendar has been much changed by Covid-19 restrictions. However, as indicated by these lots offered for sale in April, some UK auction houses continue to transact behind closed doors holding ‘live online’ sales with bids taken via bidding platforms such as thesaleroom.com or over the phone.

The three magazines shown here were all produced by students of the Royal College of Art in the years 1925-27 and sold online for £1000 in a sale at Mellors & Kirk (24% buyer’s premium) of Nottingham.

The photograph seen at bottom right is a group of Chinese men convicted of spying and awaiting “…execution by Imperialists”.

The last few weeks of lockdown may have left you wishing you could do more to fight coronavirus. Or they may have left you feeling like that blank stretch of wall in the living room could really do with brightening up.