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The question that was being asked in New Bond Street a week before Christmas must have been: "Where are the Three Wise Men when you need them?". Twas the season for them after all. The telephone line to the Tardis obviously fell out and Dr Who, the only one who could make their appearance assured, could not be contacted.
It took six burly men, three trucks and two full days to shift the life-long collection of the late Denis Warrington-Fry from his old Stanmore home. The 80-year-old pensioner had never married and rarely travelled. Instead, his one true love was a repository of statues, chandeliers, urns and figurines that consumed his energy, and his income, for six decades. But the bronze figurine of Zeus that lay among the reproductions is thought to be Renaissance treasure. It was snapped up by an anonymous London buyer at a Sydney auction on Sunday for more than $225,000.
A 19th century three piece silver tea set by Australian silversmith Alexander Dick has sold for £42,000 hammer, £49,350 (IBP) ($76,897) by Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire in their "Autumn Catalogue Sale".
The gods were smiling, and although the number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese culture, all the fours lined up in Part 4 of the four part 770 lot Mossgreen auction of Important Chinese Art in Melbourne on 22 November when bidding for four bronze Chinese gods soared to the heavens.
Bonham's decision to produce a separate catalogue to its main Fine Furniture & Decorative Arts for the sale of The Dale Frank Collection of Early Australian Furniture has been justified with 34 of the 45 lots selling (75%), raising $361,000 (hammer) against a low estimate total of $510,100.
Head of Collectables at Leonard Joel, Giles Moon, had produced a separate catalogue for the single lot sale of the Lieutenant Paul McGinness World War I medal group, which was held 30 minutes prior to the 516 lot Classic Furniture, Objects and Design sale on 20 November.
Old established third generation Ballarat antique and art dealers C. V. Jones will close their doors after 58 years in business, after an "Its Stumps" auction of over 500 lots of antiques and art on Saturday November 27.
An iconic image by Gert Sellheim achieved a new world record price at auction at Swann Galleries, New York, on 11 November. On estimates of U$3,000 – 4,000, ‘Australia – Surf Club’ from 1936 soared to US $24,000 (incl. buyer’s premium), report David Hulme and Brigitte Banziger
Canada is not the only country where an old book with watercolours pasted in can sell well. At a Lawson's Annandale sale on Friday two books by Neville W. Cayley sold for many multiples their normal value thanks in part to watercolours of a parrot and a rosella pasted in.
Contemporary artist Dale Frank is selling most of his collection of early colonial Australian furniture through Bonham’s Australia in a single-vendor sale of 45 lots in Sydney on Sunday 20 November. Bonham’s says the sale is due to a change in collecting interests, health issues and Frank’s need to focus of the restoration of his ‘Colonial properties and landscapes in New South Wales’.
E.. J. Ainger Auctions will finish off the year with three one-owner collections, to be sold separately on 3rd, 4th and 11th December 3rd 2011.
Sydney paediatric surgeon Dr Genevieve Cummins has a simple philosophy towards collecting. “I collect for a purpose, learn about the topic and then share the knowledge with other people,” she said. Which is why she has written several books on different subjects – each one a reflection of her collecting fetish at the time.
An extremely rare 14th-century time-keeping device found in a bag of old farm spare parts in a Queensland shed could fetch up to $300,000 at auction in London next month. Christopher Becker and his brother were playing in the shed of their family's cattle station in the mid-1970s when they came across the brass quadrant marked with the badge of King Richard II.
Although the three day Sotheby's Australia sale of Asian, Australian & European Decorative Arts & Furniture got off to a slow start on the first evening, when the Australiana section failed to ignite interest, (see our previous report <i>Australiana fails to inspire bidders at Sotheby's Australia</i>, the overall sale total of $2.3 million hammer was the highest since the two day May 2008 sale when $3.266 million was achieved in a two day sale.
Sotheby's Australia first evening of their three evening sale got off to an uncertain start last night with the first 108 lots of Australiana (of the 251 lot night's offering) eliciting little response from the 60 or potential bidders in the room.
Twelve classic Australian travel posters feature prominently in Swann Auction Galleries sale of rare and important travel posters on 11 November, in New York. The 186 lots inspire dreams of travelling in style to exotic places all over the world, write David Hulme and Brigitte Banziger.
AN auction of ornaments, furniture, art and kitchenware belonging to arts patron Leo Schofield attracted buyers from as far away as Belgium and the US yesterday. The food critic, columnist and arts aficionado has put his landmark Kempton home, Dysart House, up for sale and yesterday the contents went under the hammer.
Arts aficionado Leo Schofield says he is selling his Dysart House home and its contents because he just cannot find enough time to appreciate them. Mr Schofield, who has spent the past 6 1/2 years stocking the grand 1840s home with fabulous antiques, art and trinkets, is auctioning the contents tomorrow.
It had been his passion since he was a boy, inspired by his mother's love of antiques, but after collecting a vast array of Napoleonic objets d'art and recreating his very own 'Imperial palace' in South Yarra, Liberal party powerbroker Michael Kroger is finally over his 'Napoleon complex'. At an auction in the shadow of the grand Chateau de Fontainebleau just outside Paris yesterday, the Michael Kroger Collection, including imperial eagles, towering bronze candelabras, antique clocks, vases, paintings, chairs, sideboards, elaborate gilt mirrors and military paraphernalia, went under the hammer, raising more than $500,000 for the businessman
It may come as a surprise to some, but Victorian Liberal Party power broker Michael Kroger has long been a big fan of Napoleon Bonaparte. But only to those who have not have been guests at his recently sold town house in Melbourne's South Yarra.