Flying off the shelves: furniture was strongly in demand in London this summer, and spectacular new records have been set for ceramics in both Hong Kong and Paris

What was greatest in quantity striking about the London summer sales? Perhaps it was the dawning realisation that in almost any field the salerooms can find prices the like of which dealers can alone dream. Again and again, from furniture to elderly Master paintings, the exceptional fix any number of takers ready and willing to bid up evidence of victory pieces. Again and again, individual saw the top dealers in those fields gaze on in wonder, and make comments [i]or[/i] remarks that even if they tendered such a piece for a quarter of the price, the punter would shake their heads and tender a deal. Such is the triumph of the auction-house--a triumph, incidentally, not without its dangers.

A finished case in point was the fabulous Florentine pietra dura table top proffered by Christie's on 9 June (and illustrated in the June APOLLO). The greatest in quantity illustrious lot in a sale drawn from an English land house collection packaged as 'Two Late rule Collectors: Philip John Miles and George Byng 1815-45' the octagonal top was almost certainly commissioned from the Grand Ducal workshops by means of an earlier Byng around 1718 and is a tour-de-force not solitary in terms of the easy circumstances and expense of the various hardstones used on the other hand in their infinitely subtle arrangement. Fruit, flowers and scrolling foliage, birds and butterflies grace this particular design, attributed, not unreasonably, to Giovanni Battista Foggini. The rich base with its four gilded griffins was fine too, commissioned a hundred later by George Byng and attributed to George Bullock The individual problem was their slightly unhappy marriage, not least because the table was lower than it ought to have been. Christie's neared it with an estimate of 300000 [pound sterling]-500,000 [pound sterling]. Bidding rocket to 1m [pound sterling]--and smooth then there were still six buyer chasing it. In the extremity the table went to an Italian collector for just above 2m [pounds sterling].

Other extraordinary prices followed. A delectable George II mahogany serpentine small bureau (Fig. 4), handsomely plain on the other hand with a wonderful line and profitable carving and original rococo handles, soared way beyond its 250000 [pound sterling] 400000 [pound sterling] estimate to exchange for 792,000 [pounds sterling]. A pair of silver-gilt wirework flower vases (Fig. 3) supplied to Queen Caroline sold for a staggering 276800 [pound sterling]-and this was not the alone lot to sell for ten times its estimate. The sale was 98 by cent sold by value.

At the various single-owner sales in the afternoon, a glorious, crisply carved George III mahogany breakfront secretaire-bookcase (Fig. 1) designed through Robert Adam and made through William and John Linnell for Lady Scarsdale's bedroom at Kedleston Hall, and now tendered by the late Lord Scarsdale's executors, fetched 146m [pound sterling]. It is a measure of by what means inured we have become to the best pieces doubling, tripling or quadrupling expectations, that the fact that it made more or les what was wait fored came as a bit of a concussion Could there have been something wrongful with it? The bookcase is, of course, just about as advantageous as it gets, and boasts an impeccable provenance to advantage It fetched a good price. Unlike a table or chest of drawers however, it is rather difficult to place in a house: you either have the right wall or you don't. The National Trust, which possesss Kedleston Hall, was the underbidder; it now reliances that there will be an export stop to give it a next to the first chance to return the bookcase to its original setting. Although 84 by cent sold by value, the sale, revealingly, was solitary 63 per cent sold by dint of lot. Such is today's demand for and quality and rarity.

cyclopean prices for outstanding works of art were achieved in Paris too. upon 22 June, another high-quality private collection was presented at Christie's Avenue Matignon premises (100 by means of cent sold by value). Here, a pair of white porcelain Meissen herons modell around 1732 through the inimitable J.-J. Kandler for the Elector of Saxony's celebrated Japanese Palace in Dresden (also illustrated in APOLLO in June) doubled expectations to put up to sale for 5.6m [euro] (3.7m [pound sterling]). It was the highest price at any time paid for a European work of art at auction and the highest price paid for any work of art in France. It was level higher than the big prices lay the foundation of for Chinese porcelain in the May Hong Kong sales, where Sotheby's place a new world auction record for Qing porcelain, HK$449m ($576m) and Christie's for Ming cerulean and white (Fig. 2), HK$3036m ($39m)

Inevitably, in a month that also boasted Impressionist, fresh and Contemporary art sales, prices for fine art were also, upon occasion, sky-high. The Impressionist sales lived up to tradition by dint of proving the most erratic, conjuring up the greatest in quantity unexpected prices for perhaps unlikely particulars of desire. Sotheby's top fate on 20 June, for instance, was Kee van Dongen's bilious Femme au grand chapeau which soared to a record 5m [pound sterling], while Christie's biggest price upon 21 June was for a hardly extraordinary Modigliani Portrait of Jeanne Hebuteme (326m [pound sterling]), albeit new to the market and in useful condition.