Art and antiques news from 2004

PAUL VINEY of Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis helped to raise a massive sum for this year’s Children in Need Appeal by conducting an auction of promises on the Wake up with Wogan programme on Radio 2.

Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your grey mare, All along, down along, out along lee, For I want to go to Widecombe Fair, With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan Whiddon, Harry Hawke, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.The traditional song Widecombe Fair was well known in Devon around the middle of the 19th century, as was the name Thomas Cobley Gent, of Buttsford, Colebrooke.

EBAY users are being warned to look out for the Second Chance Offer scam that is among the latest frauds to hit the online marketplace. In this ruse, scammers impersonating eBay sellers target disappointed underbidders of high-price lots claiming to offer them the ‘second chance’ to buy the lot.

A novelty locomotive sweet container for Chlorodyne Lozenges (probably some form of cough drop) proved a star attraction at Richard Winterton’s December 1 collectors’ auction in Burton on Trent last week.

CHRISTIE'S are to increase their buyer’s premium. With effect from January 1, 2005, the current 19.5 per cent premium which is charged on the first £70,000/$100,000/€110,000 will increase by 0.5 per cent to 20 per cent at almost all Christie’s sites.

A HANDFUL of factors make this Coxon Aerial fishing reel among the best of its type.

ESTABLISHING a new landmark for any work of art sold at auction outside London, a family portrait by Francis Hayman (1708-1776) took £540,000 at John Nicholson’s Fernhurst salerooms last week.

BUYING and selling antique swords may soon become illegal in Scotland. As part of proposals to tackle knife crime North of the Border, Scotland’s First Minister, Jack McConnell, announced his intention to ban the sale of swords and introduce a licence for the sale of non-domestic knives.

FEIGEN Aaron is a new firm in London’s St James’s launched by two top dealers from New York and Paris and aimed at the expanding Russian market.

THE gap between the French and American art markets has dramatically widened in the past two years.

THE Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has acquired a devotional panel of the Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna (active by 1278; died 1319) from the Stoclet family in Brussels.

A NEW auction house has opened in London’s West End focusing on Russian art, one of the fastest growing sectors of the world art market.

WHEN it comes to Beatrix Potter, they don’t come rarer than this previously unrecorded first trade edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

NOTTINGHAM auctioneers Neales have become the latest business to join the Fine Art Auction Group, parent company of the Dreweatt Neate Fine Art group of regional auctioneers.

THE Conservation Register, which provides detailed information on conservation-restoration practices from across the UK and Ireland, is now available on the Internet.

CHRISTIE'S have announced that discussions with the National Trust for Scotland concerning a private sale of Dumfries House and its contents have ended.

IN September 1878, as it became clear that the Newbury Borough Fire Brigade was suffering from a lack of men and equipment, around 20 determined tradesmen decided to take matters into their own hands and to form a volunteer fire brigade. After some debate by the town’s Watch Committee, the auxiliary brigade won a majority approval.

THE international Asian art community descended on London from November 4-12 to battle for the best quality Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian material the major houses and dealers could muster during Asian Art in London.

SOUTHAMPTON Institute has two reasons to celebrate this week: its newly adopted status as a university college, granted on November 1, and the awarding of a number of prizes to its fine arts valuation students.

THE market for Contemporary art maintained its seemingly unstoppable momentum in New York last week.