Art and antiques news from 2002

Insurance giants AXA and Barclays Private Equity have withdrawn their offers to buy Drouot. In a statement issued on May 13, AXA said that their €82m offer, tabled on March 21, was to be “considered null and void, given the difficulty in obtaining the support of a majority of commissaires-priseurs”.

SOTHEBY’S results for the first quarter of 2002 show a 20 per cent drop in revenues – no great surprise following September 11 and smaller London Impressionist and Contemporary sales.

The defence and relief of Mafeking (1899) in the Boer War has a particular resonance in British history, and three Victoria Crosses were awarded for valour during the action. As a result, medals from this action generate more than usual interest.

CHRISTIE’S established 15 new auction records at their Rockefeller Centre saleroom on the evening of May 14 with a $42.1m (£29.9m) sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art.

More Renaissance items came up at Arsantiqva (15% buyer’s premium) at the Westbury Hotel on April 19 with the first of three tranches of material relating to the serene city of Venice.

Pennyfarthing Fairs cancelled their antiques fair at The Wyllyotts Centre, Potters Bar on Sunday, May 12 following the train crash in the town on Friday May 10 in which seven people died.

BONHAMS have unveiled a network of representatives across Europe whose job will be to bring in new business and ensure continuity of service for clients.

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.

THIS rugby and football memorabilia sale of just over 500 lots was not one of the specialist sporting auctioneer’s most spectacular outings, dominated as it was by paper ephemera rather than expensive medals and silverware, but the turn-out and take-up were as strong as ever.

PRE 1921 the Poole pottery firm, one of the most innovative of the 20th century British potteries, was known as Carter & Co. Headed up by Jesse Carter, the firm produced very few domestic wares focusing instead on tiles and architectural and garden ceramics.

GOOD news for all those British dealers who are anxious to attend a fair in New York sooner rather than later. Back in February, David Lester, head of International Fine Art Expositions, organisers of the acclaimed Palm Beach fair, announced he was planning an autumn fair at Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Sir John Lavery R.A. (1856-1941) is one of the hottest names in the booming Irish picture market and back in 1998 The Bridge at Grez, a large oil on canvas, took a record £1.3m at Christie’s London.

FOLLOWING the cancellation of Salon de Mars 2002 owing to a dispute with the venue over a clash with other fixtures, its organisers Association ARES have dissolved and Salon de Mars is no more.

THE jewellery and vertu at Tennants’ sale was led by a pair of 2ct diamond ear studs at £9200 but more eye-catching among the vertu was this forerunner of the Swiss Army knife, right.

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.

Furniture and pictures can usually be relied upon to bag the biggest prices in provincial auctions but while this was so at Bristol Auction Rooms April sale there were also interesting works in some of the other sections.

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.

Sotheby’s quadruple recent results and Christie’s celebrate boost too: Barely a month after its former chairman and chief executive were sentenced in a New York court, Sotheby’s bounced back in their Manhattan saleroom on May 8 with a $126m (£88.7m) Part I auction of Impressionist and Modern Art.

THE Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has just acquired an important oil sketch by Sir Peter Paul Rubens thanks to grants from the National Arts Collection Fund and the Resource V&A Purchase Fund.