Art and antiques news from 2005

With standard prices of antique furniture failing to keep pace with the property market (reported on the front page of last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette), even the most optimistic market observer could be forgiven for doubting the commercial potential of a mahogany hybrid offered at Bonhams Knightsbridge (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) on January 17.

EBAY’s fourth quarter and year-end results for 2004 were up again – but not as much as expected, leading to a dip in the share price.

At first glance, this 7ft 6in x 5ft 7in (2.28 x 1.70m) canvas, right, of the Temptation of Adam by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651-1717) might seem to be a fairly standard, if unusually large, depiction of one of the most hackneyed religious themes in Western art.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee will meet next week to consider the request from the People's Republic of China to seek restrictions on Chinese works of art imported to America.

Edinburgh dealer John Dixon of Georgian Antiques has joined the LAPADA board of directors.

Whether you are an aficionado of antiques, Contemporary art, photography, antiquarian books or all of the above, Cologne aims to cater for your needs later this month. The Rhineland city mounts a trio of fairs running concurrently at the city’s Rheinhallen from February 23-27.

This pair of Hanoverian pattern tablespoons offered at Woolley & Wallis, right, is of interest not just for the unascribed and possibly Scottish marks but for the scratched initials RP and the lightly engraved iconography of a crown, a cardinal’s hat and the name Henry Stuart.

IT is never too early for some advance news of the world’s top fair, TEFAF Maastricht, which will run in the Dutch city from March 4 to 13 with the private preview on March 3. So here is a sample of what to expect on the stand of Dutch Chinese specialists Vanderven & Vanderven, who have been with the fair since its inception.

At Sandown Park Antiques Fair on February 15, Paul Braithwaite on stand HW5 is offering this early 20th century surgeons’ fitted box, made by Mayer & Meltzer, surgical instrument makers in London, for £385.

If one wanted to view in miniature the issues experienced by the antiques trade as a whole, one could do worse than to look to the golfiana market.

The final Dix Noonan Webb (15% buyer’s premium) 2004 sale in London, on December 14, was a massive 1610-lot affair with a diversity of offerings. The total hammer take was £282,905.

THE first afternoon session of a January 20-21 antiques sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne presented more than 400 lots of books, amongst them a good collection of private press books featuring the wood-engraved illustrations of David Jones.

THE appearance of a significant Lenkiewicz forgery on the market has prompted the foundation dedicated to the artist to set up an authentication service.

Christie's King Street, 20 January, Buyer's Premium: 20/12%.The most expensive piece from the 26 lots offered from Endsleigh, the Devon cottage designed for the 6th Duke of Bedford was this 6ft (1.8m) wide carved oak side table designed c.1801-14 by Jeffry Wyatt, the architect responsible for the main decorative scheme at Endsleigh, and made by local cabinetmaker John Williams of Exeter.

Charterhouse, Sherborne, December 10, Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent TWO fine timepieces led this Dorset sale. Top price by a long way was the £21,000 bid for an unusual brass skeleton clock designed for a Victorian railway industrialist.

For the third year running, prices for standard pieces of antique furniture have failed to keep pace with the property market, according the Antique Collectors’ Club’s annual index.

Centre Exhibitions, best known as the organisers of the Antiques For Everyone fairs at the NEC in Birmingham, have announced the cancellation of this year’s equivalent event at Earl’s Court.

The £1.7m price tag needed to keep the Macclesfield Psalter in the UK has been found.

Thomson Roddick & Medcalf. Buyer’s premium: 15 per centTWO large private consignments accounted for half the lots at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s Edinburgh sale and had the predictable effect of pulling in bidders from south of the Border.

ELR, Sheffield, December 10, Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent Changing fashion was the talking point at ELR’s recent quarterly antiques sale. While the market for traditional furniture remains difficult, collectable names from the 20th century were in high demand.