Market preview: A celebrated dealer's furniture goes on sale, featuring a chair with a distinguished provenance, and Paris holds its annual Salon du Dessin

Apollo, April, 2008 by Susan Moore

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Tom Devenish was of the one legendary characters of the antiques trade. Cantankerous, difficult, sometimes very funny, he was famous for throwing people out of his Madison Avenue shop or not letting them in if he didn't like the look of them. Even Gianni Versace was not spared. When he was pointedly not invited back to the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair, he simply set up shop at the nearby Connaught Hotel, sending men in sandwich-boards to stand in Park Lane handing out tickets. From humble origins in London's East End, he ended up as the biggest English furniture dealer in New York. He had a good eye and great taste.

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His passion was for the classic period of English furniture--from Queen Anne to regency. According to the antiques advisor Tim Corfield, his UK buying agent for the eight years before Devenish's death in 2002, 'he loved anything that was good. Unlike most dealers, he was not concerned about what things cost him. If he wanted something he would buy it, and he asked big prices and never budged.' He was also not always inclined to sell.

Arguably the most important piece in his inventory now offered for sale at Sotheby's, New York, on 24 April is the fabulous and strikingly sculptural George II carved mahogany open armchair bearing the Barrington family arms, dating from around 1755 (Fig. 1). Previously in the collections of Marsden Perry and William Randolph Hearst, its pair is in the Untermyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. It sat at the back of Devenish's shop as his prized possession and no one was allowed to buy it. Rumour has it that he turned down $1m for it years ago. That is now its auction estimate--but don't hold your breath.

Other highlights include a delectable pair of George III gilt-metal mounted and marquetry-inlaid satinwood card tables in the French taste from Stowe House. They are attributed to John Cobb, perhaps the most refined and subtle of English cabinet-makers (estimate $500,000-$700,000). Some 180 pieces are on sale, all of which have been in store since the lease expired on the Madison Avenue shop in 2000 (it is a testament to Devenish's feisty spirit that he was months from opening spectacular new premises when he died at the age of 86).

Certainly the auction will provide his frustrated clients--and others--with an opportunity to buy of his best; indeed, he was only interested in selling when he wanted to acquire something better. Expected to fetch $13.8m-$20.6m, the sale will be the biggest collection of English furniture of uniformly high quality on sale for many a year. Although it will offer a large amount for the market to absorb, it may well prove a shot in the arm for the English furniture market.

A princely offering is unveiled at Christie's, Amsterdam, on 1 April. His Serene Highness Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein--one of the world's great art collectors--is now doing a spot of housekeeping and selling some 450 items deemed surplus to requirements in his various palaces. Most illustrious is the large pair of library globes by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, mapmaker to the Dutch East India Company. While not the earliest maker of globes, Blaeu produced arguably the most beautiful and established a long family line of map-makers. Indeed these globes are republished versions produced by his son Joan and which incorporate important discoveries from various voyages. The terrestrial dates from 1645-48; the celestial, from after 1630. Look out for the sea monsters, the Great Wall of China represented pictorially and for the island of California (estimate 200,000 [euro]-300,000 [euro]).

Paris, meanwhile, hosts its latest Drawings Week, mapped around the Salon Du Dessin at the Palais de la Bourse, 9-13 April. The fair's 36 galleries (Fig. 2) will provide the centrepiece of a feast of museum exhibitions in and around Paris, seminars, lectures and visits that draw collectors, curators and enthusiasts from across the globe: indeed, for seriousness of purpose this event is hard to rival. This year's symposium will focus on sculptors' drawings, and for the first time this year each exhibitor will contribute to a stand of anonymous works. Connoisseurs will find it irresistible.

CAMERA ACTION IN NEW YORK

At the Park Avenue Armory over 75 of the world's leading fine-art photography galleries will present work by contemporary, modern and 19th-century masters at the AIPAD Photography Show (10-13 April). Sotheby's, meanwhile, offer the Quillian collection on 7 April. With ratifies in superb condition by the likes of Fox Talbot, Edward Weston and Diane Arbus, it is expected to fetch over $5m. Works by Arbus are the first to be sold from Bruce and Nancy Berman's collection, in one of four single-owner sales at Christie's on 10 April.