Collector showcase venue announced
Eye of the Collector will be held at Two Temple Place – a building on Embankment behind The Strand in London – in May 2020.
Former Masterpiece fair chief executive Nazy Vassegh is running the fair which will exhibit artworks from between 30-40 galleries, selected by a curatorial committee, featuring works from established and lesser-known artists.
Vassegh said her event will be for “collectors, curators, art professionals, interior designers, architects and art insiders”.
Entry will be by invitation only between May 13-15 and it is open to the public on May 16.
Napoleon’s boots ride into auction
Leather riding boots owned by Napoleon and made by his regular bootmaker, Jacques, who was based on the rue Montmartre in Paris, sold for €91,000 (£77,780) plus buyer’s premium at the Drouot auction centre on November 29.
Riding boots owned by Napoleon – €91,000 (£77,780) at Binoche et Giquello. Image Binoche-Giquello/Drouot.
The boots were worn by him during his exile on the island of St Helena. They were lent by one of the emperor’s comrades, General Bertrand, to the sculptor Carlo Marochetti (1805-67) who was working on an equestrian statue of Napoleon.
The sculptor’s son, the Baron Marochetti, gave them to senator Paul Le Roux, in whose family they had remained until they were consigned to auction at Binoche et Giquello with an estimate of €50,000-80,000.
Dracula lobby card owned by Lugosi
A lobby card for the 1931 classic horror movie Dracula, once owned by the film’s lead actor Bela Lugosi, sold for a hammer price of $160,000 (£123,000) at Heritage’s Movie Poster auction in Dallas.
The jumbo-sized card, measuring 14 x 17in (35 x 43cm), depicts Lugosi as the undead count wrapping his cloak around co-star Helen Chandler.
Lobby card for the 1931 movie 'Dracula' – $160,000 (£123,000) at Heritage.
The Hungarian-American actor is thought to have owned it since the release of his breakthrough film.
It came by descent and was being sold at auction for the first time.
With a 20% buyer’s premium added, the winning bid on November 23-24 was nearly five times the estimate. Universal Studios printed a very limited number of these promotional cards for display at ticket desks and the full variety of images chosen for Dracula lobby cards is unknown.
Two important Russian Constructivist posters were also offered in the sale.
Sold towards the top of expectations at $90,000 (£69,200) was one of only a handful of surviving copies of a celebrated poster made for the 1929 reissue of what many consider to be the greatest propaganda film of all time, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
New BBC antiques show launches
BBC One is launching a new daytime TV show featuring art and antiques dealers called The Bidding Room.
Members of the public will bring items to sell and a group of dealers will attempt to outbid each other.
The show is an adaptation of a German TV format Bares für Rares (Cash for Trash) which was originally created by ZDF Germany.
This BBC version is set in a dealer’s shop in the Yorkshire countryside and actor Nigel Havers will welcome guests with their chosen item to sell.
A valuation expert will give them tips on what the item is worth and then they will enter the room with the five dealers who will bid to buy it.
Foundry first to run hallmark scheme
Bronze Age Foundry in Limehouse, London, is the first foundry in the UK to adopt a new bronze hallmarking scheme.
The project aims to authenticate genuine bronze and is a tie-up between the Designers’ and Artists’ Copyright Society (DACS) in partnership with art verification service Verisart.
Bronze Age Foundry in Limehouse, London, has adopted a new bronze hallmarking scheme.
The scheme, called Bronzechain, was launched to bring regulation and protection to the bronze sculpture market. Sculpture using the new Bronzechain technology, licensed by DACS to approved art foundries, will be stamped with a hallmark in the wax before casting.
A digital certificate of authenticity will be recorded by DACS and stored using cryptography by art verification service Verisart.
Most read
The most viewed stories for week November 28 - December 4 on antiquestradegazette.com
1 Actor Nigel Havers to host BBC TV show on dealers
2 Love thy neighbour: dealer bequest of ‘Kangxi’ vase to woman next-door brings windfall
3 Chinese mantel clock, Rembrandt etching and Romano-Jewish bronze ring – five auction highlights
4 Hammershøi interior scene sets record for a painting sold in Denmark
5 Six lots to watch at auction including a Fabergé brooch, an Elkington medallion and a Scottish Colourist picture
In Numbers
832
The number of lots in Jeremy Lamond’s final auction as Halls’ fine art director on December 11. The annual Halls’ Christmas auction in Shrewsbury will feature lots such as a George III mahogany longcase clock c.1770 by Thomas Mudge and William Dutton which is estimated at £25,000-35,000. Lamond joined Halls in 1996 and became director of fine art in 2005. He leaves at the end of the year.
Jeremy Lamond, whose last sale at Halls will take place on December 11.
