News and Opinion — Year 2013

Bonhams Australia is closing its decorative arts department following a stall in the market place which has lasted for more than its four years of direct operation in Australia and shows little sign of reversing.

The move also signals a change in direction for the global group of which it is part and which is now taking on the two major fine arts companies, Sotheby's and Christie's in a serious manner in Europe and the US.

An 18^th century portrait of Lady Anne Montague (lot 243), daughter of the Earl of Manchester Robert Montague and wife of James the Earl of Suffolk, from the School of Sir Peter Lely will be a highlight when the contents of David and Judith Conroy’s home is auctioned on site at 21A Hill Street, Toorak from noon December 8.

Number 149 was a lucky number for Mr Robert Bleakley, founding CEO of the first Sotheby's International branch in Australia , at Mossgreen in Melbourne this week. The Chinese buyer holding that number bought most of the top lots including those consigned by Mr Bleakley, the now Byron based beekeeper with a fascination for Buddhism.

A lavishly decorated Japanese hand scroll sold for $74,000 plus buyers premium or more than 10 times its top estimate at Vickers and Hoad Auctioneers in Sydney on November 11. Sold to a telephone bidder against competition from one of the several locally based Japanese players in the room, the interest suggests there is life yet in the faded Japanese antiquities market although the scroll was also important as a piece of Buddhist art which sometimes has a following of its own.

Over three days, on September 13, 14 and 15 Scammel Auctions of Adelaide will sell a lifetime collection of medical instruments and apparatus, magic lanterns and slides, microscopes, cameras and photography accessories.

What promised to be one of the most firmly contested lots of Australiana ever to appear in the international saleroom, has been withdrawn from a London auction because it is unlikely to be what it appears.

An "early Australian silver-mounted fruitwood and stained cedarwood inkstand (bearing the) mark of J. Josephson, NSW circa 1820" has joined Captain Cook's boomerang in a limbo-land of troublesome objects with questioned Australian connections.

Attendance at this year's annual Australian Antique and Art Dealers Association (AAADA) Sydney Fair at the new Royal Randwick grandstand from August 21 to 26 was about 20 per cent higher than last year's.

A new antique centre opened in early July on the Gold Coast.  Runaway Bay Antique & Arts Centre has 300m2 of selling space and is situated on the northern end of the Gold Coast, and about one hour south of Brisbane.

Bonhams Australia's Sydney office was besieged with calls from potential vendors this week following the sale by its London parent on July 11 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK of a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula 1 Single-Seater for £19.6 million.

Four panels from an altar- piece which went through a Melbourne auction room for $30,000 in March this year sold for £181,875 including BP at  Christie's in London on July 3.

The result pointed to a highly rewarding piece of arbitrage of the kind that has been lacking in the Australian saleroom since the early days of the internet made easy global communications available to all, writes Terry Ingram.

A New Guinea wooden carved roof figure designed to ward off evil cast its spell at the Christie's auction of tribal art in Paris on June 19. Expecting some excitement from this well known great rarity, the packed room was entranced, giving the lot a rapturous round of applause when it sold for an unprecedented €2.5 million (AU$3,520,000) including buyers premium. The sum was a new record for any piece of Oceanic art and more than doubled the estimates which ranged from €750,000 to €1 million, writes Terry Ingram.