London Eye: May 2011

In November 2010, Bainbridge’s, a small, family-run auction in the West London suburb of Ruislip, became the focus of international media attention when they sold an 18th century Chinese porcelain vase for the unprecedented sum of £51.6 million, (then $83.2 million) including premium. Six months later it has still not been paid for.

For many art market watchers that event bore an unwelcome resemblance to Christie’s sale of the Yves Saint-Laurent/Pierre Bergé collection in Paris in 2009. On that occasion a Chinese bidder successfully bid 31.4 million euros for two bronze sculptures of a rat and a rabbit that had been looted in 1860 from the Summer Palace in Peking (Beijing). The buyer subsequently refused to pay for the lots and they were returned to Pierre Bergé.

These two unrelated events appear to have prompted UK auction houses into initiating new processes prior to accepting bids on “premium” lots of Asian art. Early indications suggest that this will become standard practice at UK auctions.

This week both Duke’s in Dorchester and Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury will sell important consignments of Chinese imperial white jade and porcelain. Both auction houses have requested that bidders intending to compete for the more expensive lots register their financial details prior to the sale and provide appropriate deposits. These special requirements apply only to what the auction houses are describing as “premium lots,” which include, at Duke’s, a Chinese white jade cup and saucer estimated at £100,000-£200,000 ($162,000-$325,000) and at Woolley and Wallis an exceptionally fine and rare Chinese imperial white jade teapot and cover expected to fetch £200,000-£300,000 ($325,000-$486,450).

Clare Durham of Woolley and Wallis’s Asian Art department told Auction Central News, “The premium lot deposit requirement is really designed to reassure our vendors and give us some security against the occasional nonpayer.” However, she went on to explain that most of the problems with Asian art arise from late payment rather than nonpayment. “We should stress that this isn’t a punitive measure for the Chinese. The need to leave a deposit will be at our discretion and any Chinese or Western buyer that has a good payment record with us will probably not have to leave a deposit. I think this practice is likely to become standard over the coming year.”

Payment protocols aside, these two sales offer further evidence of just how many important Chinese works of art still reside in British family collections. Whether the controversial provenance of some of these objects — particularly those looted by British and French troops from the Old Summer Palace in 1860 — will affect their dispersal at auction remains to be seen.

June is traditionally the key month in London for art and antiques fairs and this year will provide an opportunity to assess how this thriving sector is bearing up against the ongoing recession. The next few weeks will see the opening of the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair at the Olympia Exhibition Centre (June 10-19 ), the 2011 Masterpiece Fair at the Royal Hospital Chelsea (June 30 to July 5), and Art Antiques London on the Albert Memorial West Lawn at Kensington Gardens (June 9-15).

While the Olympia Fair is now one of London’s longest established events, both the Masterpiece and Art Antiques London fairs are new ventures, both in only their second years. Any skepticism about whether London could sustain so many similar events has surely been dispelled by the fact that they are all still up and running and providing an enjoyable environment for London’s wealthy to meet and mingle. This is surely testimony to the capital’s current status as the coolest, most fashionable city in Europe, despite being widely regarded as the most expensive.

The Masterpiece Fair, designed to replace the now defunct Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair, which folded in 2009, is arguably now London’s closest equivalent to the annual European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht. One of Masterpiece’s main selling points is that it’s a fair one can see in a day whereas TEFAF is now so big that several days (and very strong legs) are required just to get round all the stands. More about the Masterpiece event in the June edition of London Eye.

The other new kid on the block, the Art Antiques London fair, enjoyed 14,500 visitors in its first year and this year sees a number of new dealers taking stands. The organizers insist that the fair is “aimed at collectors and connoisseurs,” although quite how that differentiates it from every other art and antiques fair is unclear. What certainly sets them apart, however, is their superb location right in the center of the South Kensington museum complex. Once the current redevelopment is complete this will surely be one of London’s most vibrant cultural quarters, which can only help the fair.

One exhibitor at the fair who will be hoping to benefit from the presence in London of buyers visiting for the Asian art auctions is specialist Asian ceramics dealer Anita Gray. She will be showing a rare Chinese Kangxi period teapot decorated in imitation of the Japanese Kakiemon palette, which is almost identical to an example in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen. Meanwhile, among the rather more unconventional material on view at the fair is a ruby, sapphire, yellow diamond and enamel heart-shaped brooch designed by the Hollywood jeweler Paul Flato and once owned by Millicent Rogers Balcom, the Standard Oil heiress. Millicent was photographed wearing the brooch in Vogue in 1939.

The glitzy celebrity bling theme hinted at in Flato’s brooch might have found favor with those flocking to Christie’s rock and pop sale at their South Kensington rooms on June 14. It seems only yesterday that Doctor Martens-clad punk rock devotees could be seen parading down the Kings Road, safety pins inserted into noses, mohicans wafting in the breeze. Now the guitars, posters and other memorabilia associated with that seminal sub-cultural movement have been elevated to blue-chip commodities, as Christie’s sale makes clear.

Thirty-five years has evidently been long enough to transform a once humble Sex Pistols poster for the single God Save the Queen from a piece of disposable ephemera into a collectable worth £800-£1,200 ($1,300-$1,950), while those present at Chicago’s Cabaret Metro Club in October 1991 when doomed Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain smashed drummer Dave Grohl’s bass drum to pieces might be surprised to hear that the battered remnants are now estimated at no less than £3,000-£5,000 ($4,800-$8,100).

Similarly fond memories are reserved for British rock band The Who and appropriately enough it is Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s rare Gold Top Les Paul Deluxe guitar which looks set to grasp the limelight at Christie’s where it is estimated at £20,000-£30,000 ($32,400-$48,625), while a poster advertising the band’s regular Tuesday night gigs at the Marquee Club is expected to fetch £4,000-£5,000 ($6,400-$8,100).