Jul 6, 2020
We’ve just had one of those “they said it couldn’t be done moments”. You know what I mean: manned flight, landing on the moon, Leicester City winning the FA Cup (ok, that still hasn’t happened, but they won the Premiership), a British player winning the Men’s tournament at Wimbledon…
In our world, the moment came on June 29 when Sotheby’s launched what was, to all intents and purposes, a TV gameshow format for selling the world’s top-end art. OK, so the most expensive piece at $73 million, a work by the late Francis Bacon, sold on the phone, but the $300 million plus result for the 74 lots on offer was final proof positive that internet sales are not just for the cheaper end of the market.
It may still be a while until they bring the hammer down on an internet bid of $50 million or more, but it can now only be a matter of time after the world’s leading art collectors showed themselves only too willing to take part in this ground-breaking experiment.
This doesn’t mean the end of the live sale in its entirety – too much history and excitement is tied up with that – but it does mean that auctions have entered a new era. It may have taken the pandemic to accelerate this process, but now we’ve seen it in all its glory, it’s here to stay.
It’s a bittersweet experience for people, like me, who have spent so many years performing to a live audience from the rostrum.
Jun 22, 2020
The Royal Family has to deal with a lot of reputation management issues these days, but for those who think this is a modern phenomenon, a fascinating item coming up for auction tells another tale.
In the early 19th century the French watch-making genius that was Abraham-Louis Breguet produced the Tourbillon Watch, a sumptuous gold timepiece that was at the cutting-edge of horological technology. Sought out by the crowned heads of Europe, Breguet had supplied the demands of Marie Antoinette and the Tsar, the King of Spain and even Napoleon.
Much taken by the Tourbillon, in 1808 King George III of Britain – a keen follower of sciences and horology – decided to buy it.
The problem was, England and France were at war and for the King to be seen trading with the French and sending what was the vast sum of 4,800 French Francs across the Channel would have been a public relations disaster.
The records tell us that Tourbillon reduced the risk of the watch being seized by only signing the carriage inside it. Exact details of how it was delivered discreetly into the Royal hands remain unclear – hardly surprising bearing in mind the circumstances – but after all the trouble Tourbillon and his associates took to fulfil the order, it transpires that the king never fully paid for the watch.
The final irony is that Sotheby’s have chosen July 14 as the date to put up the watch for sale. That’s Bastille Day, the event that marked the beginning of the French Revolution and the end of the monarchy across the water.
Jun 15, 2020
Stephen Fry once wrote about how he came from a household that showed as much knowledge or interest in sport as hedgehogs show in embroidery. Yet somehow, even as one who had spent his schooldays devising new ways of getting out of the dreaded ‘games’, as an adult he came to love watching all kinds of sport.
So it is with much regret that many of us will be missing Wimbledon this year.
Around now, we would normally be gearing up for the first bowl of strawberries and cream as we watched Nadal’s crashing serve take out some poor unknown qualifier, or debating whether this is the year that Serena Williams finally beats Margaret Court’s slam record.
Sport is a fertile hunting ground for collectors because of all this, as well as the statistics, the records, the personalities and the sheer excellence and achievement.
Football, golf, tennis, cricket, baseball and many other sports have keen followings among collectors, with record prices rising into five, six or even seven figures on occasion.
Thinks of all those fans grabbing for the sweaty headbands, wristbands, tennis balls and – on rare occasions – racquets used in grand slam finals. Not only does this give them a connection with greatness; it can also prove a goldmine later on.
Jun 8, 2020
Auction houses will be allowed to re-open their doors to the public from June 15. What does this mean in practice? Well, I think above and beyond anything else, we must all use our common sense, especially if we are to avoid the feared second wave of the pandemic.
I think we can take inspiration from the way that supermarkets and others who have stayed open have been operating. It also means being careful with the way paperwork is handled, payments are processed from those bidding in the room when that goes ahead and, for our part, ensuring the health and safety of our staff.
However well we plan for this, doubtless unforeseen elements will arise to challenge us in what is, after all, an unprecedented and complex situation. So we will tread carefully. Patience will be key to everything we do, whether as service providers or on the part of those wishing to come and view items in person. For all the finger pointing and disgruntlement on social media with what has been going on and how the authorities have handled it, I have been supremely impressed with the forbearance and consideration of the public in general.
We will be doing our best to make sure everyone is safe and that a visit to our Fernhurst rooms is as enjoyable and rewarding an experience as it can be. And we will continue to provide the full live bidding offer online too. Around the country you will find other salerooms seeking to do the same. This business is here to stay.
Jun 4, 2020
The four Ds that lead to items being sold at auction are Death, Divorce, Debt and Decluttering. After what we have all been through since March, I suspect that Debt will be the prompt for a whole new slew of consignments to auction as people try to get back on an even keel.
As people scour the attic and the hall cupboard looking for anything that might raise a few pounds, it is a timely reminder of some of the most unexpected things that have come up trumps in the auction rooms.
My favourite story of recent years took place in France last year. An auctioneer was called to clear out the modest 1960s home of a woman in her nineties when she noticed a small wooden painting hanging from the wall above the kitchen stove.
It had been passed down through the family and the old elderly woman thought it worthless, but it struck the auctioneer as something rather better.
Her hunch paid off: is was a lost work by the early Renaissance master Cimabue painted c.1260 – only 11 other works by him are known – and it went on to sell for €24.2 million, making it the world’s most expensive medieval artwork sold at auction.
May 25, 2020
Occasionally you come across a story that goes to absolute heart of what it means to be a collector. One such is that of the late Arthur Muggeridge, a Royal Artillery veteran who accumulated a fascinating a collection of items linked to spying, counter-espionage and daring POW escapes during the Second World War.
Packed with the sort of items that would have inspired Ian Fleming as he wrote about the ingenious Q, the collection includes concealed weapons, map fragments hidden in dominoes, a string vest that could be unravelled to reveal a single piece of string to be made into an escape rope and even exploding coal.
These all sprang from the imaginations of the boffins of MI9, the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, a department of the War Office between 1939 and 1945 charged with supporting European Resistance networks.
MI9’s Q was Christopher Hutton, who built himself a secret underground bunker in a field so that he could work undisturbed. One of my favourite of his inventions were maps printed on silk (so they wouldn’t rustle) that could be disguised as handkerchiefs. Famously Hutton developed uniforms that could be adapted quickly to look like civilian clothing, and he even supplied a floorplan of Colditz Castle to the officers held there.
Muggeridge’s collection is a real rarity, and although worth close to £20,000, it is the history, brilliance and sheer audacity of those who dreamed all of this up, together with the dramatic wartime stories in which they featured, that make it a dream for any auctioneer.
May 18, 2020
One of the signatures of the pandemic has been the quiz. Sometimes these have been online, and I have noticed a number of my peers among the auctioneering and dealing fraternity – and it does always seem to be the male variety – posting pictures of objects on Facebook and Twitter, challenging their friends and followers to guess what it is or who made it.
The other type of quiz growing in popularity has been the weekly video conferencing type, with various households from the same family or friendship group coming together over a few drinks and nibbles to compete over rounds of questions on film, geography, current affairs and so forth.
In both cases, while it is pleasant to learn some esoteric facts as the answers are revealed, the real value of these events is that they act as a focus for maintaining communication when all other means of getting together are denied us.
Being the quizmaster on a video conference quiz is a bit like being on the rostrum; somehow one finds oneself surrounded by the same set of characters: the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on at all; another who keeps interrupting at the wrong moment; a third who makes regular challenges to the process…
It can be a bit stressful dealing with all of this, but the fun and camaraderie that goes alongside it means you wouldn’t miss it for the world.
May 11, 2020
Over the past few years the wealthy appear to have been moving away from buying large country estates and mansions in favour of turnkey luxury properties that are low on maintenance. I assume that they simply don’t want the bother and expense of keeping such large establishments going, and I have noticed many a dream property stalling on the market in search of a buyer. If people don’t want these places, who is going to want the substantial collections of art and antiques that have traditionally filled them? And if they don’t, does that mean prices will fall along with demand? That sort of thing can be a bit of a worry if you’re in a business like mine.
Now, however, the pandemic has clearly led to a rethink and only this week I have been reading about how rich city dwellers are all set to find themselves a comfortable country retreat, with all the amenities that go with it, as a sanctuary against a repeat performance of these unprecedented times. It’s an irony that as the rest of the property market is expecting to see falls of up to twenty per cent in value, the very top end may well enjoy an increase in demand.
It’s a shame that tragedy is the cause of this about face in attitudes, but if it means the preservation and revitalisation of a major part of our cultural tradition, then I, for one, will be focusing on the silver lining rather than the cloud.
May 4, 2020
So after the best part of two months, we are firing on all cylinders again and it’s wonderful to be back in the driving seat, albeit in a very different world.
As with every other walk of life now, day-to-day activity at auctions has changed dramatically, and I suspect that many of these changes will remain for the long term.
The good side is that the rate at which buyers are prepared to migrate to bid online has accelerated to the point that in terms of progress we have leapt forward around five years.
This will keep people safe, reduce the carbon footprint of saleroom visits and bring auction houses and those consigning goods to them a far wider audience than ever before.
The not-so-good side is that fewer people are likely to come and inspect goods in person, or enjoy the live drama of an auction in progress as they sit before the rostrum. It has to be safety first, of course, and that will dictate the access and movement of visitors and staff around the premises.
As history has shown us, auction rooms are extremely adept at adapting to survive and thrive. We’re back and we will be looking to bring our clients a better service than ever. I only hope businesses in other sectors have the same will and ability to make a strong comeback too.
Apr 14, 2020
We humans are a versatile and innovative lot. With no end in sight to the lockdown, we have all been looking at ways to help the needy as well as prepare for the return to work properly when the time comes. I have been very impressed with the way some of my colleagues in the world of fine art and antique auctions have adapted their practices to keep going – one even conducted a major auction live online from his dining room table.
It is also clear to me that when we do all get back to normal, some of the innovations we have been hesitating over for a while now will be quickly adopted as they have been tested under duress and found to be more than workable.
A common theme during lockdown has been the charity auction in aid of the NHS. I have no idea how much money will be raised to support nurses and doctors as they fight on the front line, but I’m sure you will join me in wishing them all the best and perhaps dipping into your pockets to bid for this great cause. As my own circumstances prevent me from arranging an auction of this type myself, I intend to add my bids to the efforts of others.
