News

Luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault finally abandoned his attempt to compete with Christie’s and Sotheby’s at the top end of the art market last week when he sold his remaining 27.5 per cent stake in troubled auction house Phillips to its joint chief executives Simon de Pury and Daniella Luxembourg.

One of London’s best known department stores, Peter Jones of Sloane Square, has been accepted as a member of LAPADA. It is not well known that the SW1 store includes a flourishing antiques department and has done for more than 90 years.

UK: Hamptons’ sale of Antiquarian & Modern Books and Maps at 11am on Thursday, February 13 will be a sad occasion both for the auctioneers and local book buyers. For years Thorpe’s of Guildford, under the late Charles Traylen, have been a familiar face at Hamptons auctions, and for much longer local bibliophiles have spent many a happy hour in the first floor barn of a room at the shop.

Lorenzo R. Rudolf has been appointed vice president of International Fine Art Expositions, the David Lester-run fair organising business now owned by dmg world media. Mr Rudolf was the driving force behind ArtBasel for over 10 years before leaving in 1999 to become the director for the Frankfurt Book Fair. He also conceived and set in motion the plans for ArtBasel Miami Beach, launched in December.

STRANGE to associate the HMV label in any way with fishing, but one of the highlights of Holt’s March 6 sale at the Duke of York’s Barracks, Chelsea, will be this rare copy of Tarpomania – the madness of fishing, written in 1908 by the industrialist and founder of His Master’s Voice, Eldridge Reeves Johnson.

There was little in the three series of 19th century sales held by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Finarte-Semenzato in December to get excited about.

Gino Severini’s Les objets deviennent peinture (vase bleu et maïs) was one of the most significant lots in Christie’s 310-lot auction of Contemporary art in Rome on December 18. Dating from 1965, this picture was the last oil still life he was to paint and, indeed, one of the last works to be finished before his death.