News and Opinion — Year 2015

Two works – one of them a major painting entitled The Garden of the Graces – by famous 19th century water colourist Ebenezer Wake Cook (1843-1926) lead a strong art section at Christian McCann Auctions forthcoming sale from noon Sunday May 3 at 426 Burnley Street, Richmond.

The painting was inspired by Greek mythology The Three Graces (in Roman mythology Gratiae) – goddesses of such virtues as charm, beauty and creativity

Leonard Joel’s April Modern Design auction features an international collection with designer pieces never before offered on the Australian auction market.

Highlights of the sale, from 6.30pm Thursday April 23 at 333 Malvern Road South Yarra, include the Saruyama Sofa designed by Toshiyuki Kita and manufactured by Moroso.

The 1888 Coloured Champion of the World Boxing trophy – a Victorian sterling silver two-handled embossed trophy cup – will be auctioned from 10am Thursday April 23 by Mossgreen as part of its sporting memorabilia sale at 926-930 High Street, Armadale.

The cup is engraved with the words “Presented to Peter Jackson, Coloured, Champion Boxer of the World, at the Alhambra, Brighton, Eng, Monday Decr 2nd 1889, By a Few Admirers of His Sterling Qualities”.

Stamp and postal history collectors will no doubt wait with mouth-watering anticipation for Mossgreen’s forthcoming Stamps and Postal History of New South Wales auction from 6pm Monday April 20 at Martyn Cook Galleries 98 Barcom Avenue, Rushcutters Bay in Sydney.

Writing in the catalogue introduction, Mossgreen specialist Gary Watson claims the 100 lots of Sydney Views stamps are among the highest quality selections ever offered at auction.

The Australian dollar may have slipped together with the price of iron ore and national economic prospects. But the quintessential symbol of Australia - the kangaroo is holding tight.

The kangaroo is a pest no more or not at least as far as the saleroom and art circuit are concerned.

At sales or viewings in as oddly diverse locations such as Sydney (an auction house); Hong Kong (an art fair) and Surrey (a golf club) fine and decorative art featuring kangaroos has enjoyed keen responses – two silver examples leading the fray.

Against frenetic bidding at a Sotheby's Australia auction in Melbourne's Grand Hyatt Hotel on March 31, Museum Victoria outbid private buyers to secure choice lots from a selection of objects that had been collected by the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, which given the strength of the local and global bidding in the room could have gone to overseas buyers.

With the help of the Australian Government Cultural Heritage Account the museum purchased seven lots.

The quaint Clarice Cliff mask, which features in Philips Auctions latest decorative arts sale, first came to public prominence in the Melbourne Herald of November 28, 1935.

The mask was mentioned in an article about Dr and Mrs Cecil Raphael’s new home high on the hill in Glenferrie Road, Glenferrie – and referred to because it was reflected in an immense circular mirror that hung on the wall above the living room fireplace.

Two consignments from Australia appear to have benefitted substantially in the market place from the attention created by the sale of one of the world's finest collections of Asian art in New York this month.

Both Sotheby's and Christie's sold works shipped across the Pacific through the local franchise and the representative offices respectively of the two companies

Keen collectors of art and other collectables, Dr Peter Brew and his wife Monica lived at 1269 High Street, Malvern for almost six decades.

They bought the turn of the 20th century house in 1959 and in it raised seven children. To some degree, Peter Brew followed in the collecting footsteps of his prominent ophthalmologist grandfather, Dr George Alexander Brew, who, among other items, obtained several prominent pieces that once belonged to Lord Kitchener and notes from Captain Cook’s diary.

Australia's mineral trade with China may be faltering but the boom in choice Chinese art exports from is very much alive and well as is the brand through which they were consigned.

Sotheby's New York has sold sold for a seven figure sum, a set of four enamel panels consigned through the “unrelated” Sotheby's Australia.

Three recent antique, decorative arts and philatelic auctions showed that interest in the most unlikely categories can produce satisfactory returns if estimates are adjusted to show that the goods are genuinely for sale. An opulent setting can also help. With bidders now accustomed to the delay occasioned by online bidding, auctioneers additonally have the chance to slow the proceedings for this third player, the phalanx of unseen bidders on the Internet.

The Caressa Crouch and Carl Gonsalves Collection of Australiana sold for $1.07 million or more than three times expectations at Mossgreen's rooms in Melbourne on February 22. The result was helped by strategically low estimates designed to sell, writes Terry Ingram.