London

PLANS to give a London antiques centre a makeover – turning it into an arcade for interior decorators – has meant six dealers getting their marching orders... or so it seems.

Clarice Cliff: The latest auction foray into the colourful world of Clarice Cliff at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), May 2, did not perform as well as previous specialist sales. Buyers were only found for 62 per cent of the 302 lots compared to their last Clarice Cliff outing in November 2001 that boasted a higher 72 per cent take-up for the 430 lots.

The late Clive Sherwood bought this imposing Elizabethan oak tester bed at Sotheby’s in London in 1969. By all accounts he had to sell all his silver to raise the cash, but he was still buying early oak at a time when it was possible to buy in bulk and learn from your mistakes.

BICYCLES AND CYCLING MEMORABILIA: The veteran bicycle and cycling ephemera market continues to be driven by a small group of serious UK and international collectors and museums. It was one of the strongest sections in Bonhams (15/10% buyer’s premium) 634-lot auction of Veteran Bicycles & Cycling Memorabilia, Collectors’ Motor Cars, Toys, Models and Automobilia, held at the RAF Museum, Hendon on April 21 and 22.

AT the end of this week the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House in London will unveil a new display of one of the most outstanding collections of silver.

AS a regular exhibitor at that most traditional of fairs, the Chelsea Antiques Fair, and after enjoying a most successful debut at New York’s Winter Antiques Show earlier this year, there is no doubt that European folk art specialist Robert Young is very much an antique dealer.

As well as Christie’s main Islamic arts sale at King St, there was a larger 427 lot event covering the same general areas at middle-ranking level in their South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) rooms on April 25.

SHOWING at the V&A until June 9 is ‘Milan in a Van’, the pick of some of the best work at the Milan Furniture Fair, one of the world’s top design trade fairs which was held from April 10 to 15.

This unusual looking piece from Ottoman Turkey, pictured right, provided one of the highlights of Bonhams’ Islamic sale on April 24 when it sold for £40,000.

THE Dutch Ambassador welcomed British and Dutch dealers to a reception at the London embassy on April 24 to celebrate the signing of a formal agreement between two leading trade associations.

A FORMER Cambridge University student who plundered priceless historical book collections, stealing works valued at over £1m, has been jailed for four years.

THE British Museum is being advised to sell off up to a fifth of its ‘spare’ exhibits to raise funds. The museum is already being forced to sell off valuable property and shed up to 180 jobs – including vital conservation posts – to stave off bankruptcy a year before its 250th anniversary.

One of the main preoccupations of the 19th century art potters – and a distinguishing feature of much of their work – is an emphasis on hand crafting and experimental work and an interest in the techniques and glazes of earlier periods.

WEST London’s The Old Cinema in Chiswick, billed by its owner Martin Hanness as the capital’s only antiques department store, is undergoing a major makeover not far off a century after it was opened in 1910.

THE dust is finally starting to settle in the newly merged Bonhams (17.5% buyer’s premium). Those who lost their jobs have long since gone, departments have been reshuffled and on March 27 the last print sale was held at the Chelsea salerooms.

Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann spent several million dollars of his fortune on Impressionist and Modern art, but, for all this expenditure, few specialists in this most expensive of all sectors of the art market seemed to have regarded Dr Dreesmann as a major collector.

Bigger stands - startling new stock: THE much-discussed new look for this June’s Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair was unveiled last week. This year’s event will combine a bolder more spacious look with a more relaxed attitude toward datelines.

They haven’t exactly been churning out sales at Christie’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) King Street rooms recently. Things have been pretty quiet since the February Impressionist and Modern auctions, and their March 21 auction of 19th century furniture and sculpture was their first decorative arts event this year.

THE FIRST oak and country sale of 2002 for Sotheby’s Olympia (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) took place on March 26 with just over 300 lots of furniture, metalware and decorative works of art and a smattering of textiles.

A section of the Knightsbridge sale concerned with the law was strong on collections of sensational accounts of trials of a sexual nature, some dealing with serious assaults – like the account of a 1786 trial at East Grinstead of ...John Motherhill, for a Rape on the Body of Miss Catherine Wade, daughter of ..the Master of Ceremonies at Brighthelmstone which sold at £440 (Laywood) – others dealing with simple adultery, indiscretion or deception.