Sale-rooms
Tea caddies sans frontieres
Alistair McAlpine
The summer has been busier than usual for the art market. Contrary to expecta- tion, trade has been good for dealers who stayed at home and minded the shop. Those who took a month or two off this year have not unnaturally found business was not brisk.
The silly sales seem, by and large, to have gone well. One of the silliest, the contents of Sutton Brailes — mostly awful reproduction furniture made in the Thirties — achieved twice Sotheby's estimates, but 'their estimates these days are not as they once were. Just as well, too. This sale, the contents of the home of Mrs Dorothea Allen, whose work was the manufacture of underwear and whose hobby seems to have been the collecting of it, was yet another example of the irrational hysteria which surrounds country house sales.
The trend in the sale-rooms at the beginning of the new season seems to be to sell collections: there are tea caddies at Christie's, rather grandly called 'The Ter- ence J. Fox Collection of Tea Equipage'; Bonhams offer The Herbert Ward Collec- tion of Royal Commemorative China' and 'The Mr and Mrs John Munday Collection of Original Paperback Cover Designs'; Phillips are holding a sale entitled 'The Alphonse Collection of Pontifical States and Sicily' — not a sale of the greater part of Italy where everything must go, no reserves, nothing held back, but rather a sale of stamps.
Italy seems to be the enthusiasm of the next few months, with the Frank H. Kissner Collection up for sale at Christie's: over 4,500 books, prints and drawings, all about Rome and its inhabitants — a serious collection and I suppose a shame that it should be dispersed. It is well worth noting that the individual lots for a collec- tion of this sort tend to run to a premium. Perhaps the buying public needs to be reassured by seeing them neatly placed amongst their fellows. It is easy to assess the value and importance of the lot de scribed as The Sailor Prince — a Britannia metal model figure of Edward, Prince of Wales' when it is Lot Number 552 amongst 891 similar lots, harder if it is standing on a junk shop shelf. Treasure from the galleon Maravillas forms part of an antique jewel- lery sale, also at Christie's. Its presence will ensure high prices for the other lots — treasure recovered from the sea always draws a crowd.
Sotheby's September/October preview has a fine castle, the Halls of Herstmon- ceux, on its cover — a very grand way to start the season — and, inside, an equally grand photograph of a statesmanlike and ageing Edward Heath and a eulogy about his collection of porcelain and paintings. Whatever your view of Edward Heath as a statesman, if Sotheby's had to survive on the collecting activities of such as he they would be closed in a week. The grandeur of the article's tone is rather let down by a 'I still say it's just a floating log.' photograph of Augustus and Dorelia John disguised as artists and the young Edward Heath holding the door of an expensive car, clearly pretending to be their chauf- feur. Why is all this there?
An auction in Madrid is taking place on 30 October at which an El Greco, 'The Disrobing of Christ', is to be sold. (A version of this work is included in an exhibition at Heraklion, his home town. It comes from the Budapest Museum.) There is little chance of the Sotheby's painting leaving Spain, so the price will be much reduced, but what will happen in 1992? Will art move freely within the Common Market or, as seems more likely, will items of national heritage and national plunder stay firmly where they are? It is hardly in the spirit of the great new European nation as proclaimed by the likes of Edward Heath and Monsieur Delors. At least the mystery of Sotheby's preview is explained — it is all about Europe.
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