Fellow appraisers Stephen Sweeting, ASA is reporting on the Appraisers Post that troubled Canadian auction house Ritchies has declared bankruptcy. In his post, Sweeting has links to Canadian papers which are carrying the news, as well as reporting on some of the background events and turmoil over the past few months. I have reported in the past on some of the trouble Ritchies was encountering on the AW Blog, including a dispute over ownership (click HERE to read the previous post). Ritchies had a relationship which soured with Sotheby's but has also set record prices for Canadian art in the past.Sweeting reports
Ritchies' business troubles first manifested themselves to the wider public when Sotheby’s Canada ended a multi-year auction services agreement with the firm due to the non-payment of consignors.
Ritchies was a quirky regional firm that tended to cater to the lower and mid-level art and antiques market in the Greater Toronto area. But every now and then the small firm scored some real successes that pushed them onto the national and even the international stage. The sale of a remarkable Francois Boucher pastel drawing for a record-breaking half a million dollars was one such foray onto the international stage. And their most recent association with Sotheby’s catapulted the firm into Canada’s top-tier fine art auction market. It was in the Ritchies salesroom that Sotheby’s sold Paul Kane’s Scene In The Northwest- Portrait for CAD $5.1 million including buyer’s premium in 2002. This record price for a Canadian painting sold at auction still stands today.
To read the full post by on the Appraisers Post with links for further background, click HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment