Art and antiques news from 2005

Two pictures by Henry Redmore (1820-1887) helped Scarborough auctioneers David Duggleby (12.5% buyer’s premium) to a record sale back on November 29 by selling for a combined £27,600.

Two unfamiliar French artists, Gustave Cariot and André Marchand, figured strongly at Tajan’s Modern art sale on January 31.

THE currencies of the world will be traded at Maastricht, but no exchange is likely to match that seen on the stand of West Yorkshire porcelain specialist Valerie Clark at Robert Bailey’s Winter Fine Art and Antiques Fair in Harrogate over the weekend of February 4 to 6.

TAJAN (20.93% buyer’s premium) started the year with guns blazing on January 17 and a sale dominated by 19th century weaponry.

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934), born in upstate New York to abolitionist Quaker farmers, was a man of many talents. Over his long lifetime he was a banker, shopkeeper, inventor and painter -– he even penned an opera. However, he is best known to generations of bar-going Americans for his paintings of dogs playing poker.

WITH the emphasis this week on Europe, a reminder that life goes on elsewhere.

Have van, will travel. Competition for market-fresh material is as strong in the northwest as anywhere in the country, so auctioneer Adrian Byrne was more than happy to entertain the prospect of travelling to the Orkney Islands in pursuit of a decent house clearance.

MARCH in the small and ancient Dutch city of Maastricht is not just the hub of the international art world for the duration of the world’s top fair, TEFAF Maastricht. It has an impact which reverberates throughout the whole year and is a commercial event unparalleled in its quality and expertise.

FOR a century and a half, the family breweries which peppered Stroud, supplied the Cotswolds with a variety of ales.

Clarke Gammon Wellers, Guildford, December 14. Buyer’s premium: 15 per centTHE current demand for decorative furniture was underscored at this 710-lot Surrey auction by a pair of hybrid, George III, satinwood marquetry and parcel gilt side tables which stole the limelight.

“FAIRS here are not as big by any means as those in the UK. The biggest regular fairs would have between 30 and 45 dealers and even the annual equivalent of a LAPADA fair would only have about 40 dealers or so.”

THERE was an unprecedented attendance at the February Newark fair as buyers took advantage of a free ticket offer to experience the fair’s new three-day format.

ANOTHER feature of this early winter New York season is the sales held by Baldwin’s Auctions, Dmitry Markov and Münzen und Medaillen (New York branch) (all 15% buyer’s premium).

The venerable Mayfair dealership The Fine Art Society, whose Bond Street premises are currently undergoing stage two of a refurbishment, has announced two youthful appointments to its board of directors.

WITH MacArthurmania gripping a nation already gearing itself up for the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, this should, in theory, be an auspicious year for the UK marine pictures market.

Almost a quarter of a century after it was stolen from its walls, the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery is again appealing for the return of a Japanese woodblock print that once belonged to Vincent van Gogh.

Though blessed with means of communication beyond the comprehension of anyone of Nelson’s navy – superior by far to signal beacons, semaphore and speeding sloops and cutters – an unfortunate breakdown in these modern methods meant that the two Nelson items featured in last week’s reports were not joined by what proved to be the star turn in a Lyon & Turnbull sale of February 1.

WELSH organisers Amulet Fairs are at Deeside on Sunday February 27 and then, on March 6, at Llangollen. Remember to bring your euros.

JUST a couple of years ago, specialist glass fairs were proliferating. That frenzy seems to have settled down of late, probably because the serious glass dealers understandably are getting choosy. But one that increasingly is making its mark is the Cambridge Glass Fair, organised by Paul Bishop under the name Oxbridge Fairs, which will be held for the fifth time this Sunday (February 20) at Chilford Hall Vineyard, Linton, Cambridgeshire.

More Nelson fever to report. The exterior to this rounded rectangular George III silver vinaigrette by Birmingham smith Matthew Linwood is really very plain but open it up and it reveals a gilt hinged grille embossed with a ship portrait inscribed Victory and flanked by the word Trafalgar and the date Oct 21 1805.