Big spenders play it safe

AUCTIONS

The mid-season sale of modern British paintings at Sotheby's, Wednesday (10.30am) reflects a market that sagged in the second half of last year after a perky start. There are more safe, traditional, figurative works, and fewer risky avant-garde abstracts.

This is a bumper sale with 20 per cent more lots than usual and modest estimates. In a market where buyers who spent £20,000 a year up to four years ago have throttled back to the £2,000-£5,000 mark, the temptation is to pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.

Beginners will warm to the 60 paintings from the collection of the late Dr Sidney Lewsen, begun in the Thirties. He bought small paintings typical of the artist, never spending more than his GP's salary would allow. His taste was graphic, romantic and eclectic - from Sickert to Kossoff.

His double page of Henry Moore studies for sculpture, bought for £9 9s in 1940, is estimated £20,000-£30,000. But, more affordable, there is a Josef Herman ink and wash landscape at £300-£500 and Sickert drawings at estimates from £800 to £2,000.

Elsewhere in the sale: a small but quintessential Carel Weight of lonely wanderers at £1,200-£1,600 and a big Bratby interior of 1957 at £2,000- £3,000, the same estimate as some sunflowers of his. Buyers may still be deterred by Bratby's vast, uncatalogued output - just how many sunflowers did he paint? - but prices have been creeping up. These two favourite images should shift easily enough.

Victorian pictures are another sector enveloping itself in safety. The city's financial barrow boys were expected to pile into the market when it jump-started out of the recession with the encouragement of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. But instead of flash Harry speculators, the typical buyer is a middle-aged engineer. It must be the Pugin-inspired furniture half concealed behind the lightly draped maidens.

Christie's thrice-yearly sale, Friday (10.30am) has 303 lots, proving that Victorian pictures are still getting the right money. Most estimates are in the range £700-£8,000.

Christie's South Kensington is holding the first dedicated vintage film poster sale, Thursday (2pm), at which American dealers, attracted by sole surviving posters such as the one for The Lavender Hill Mob, 1951, est £5,000-£7,000, will outbid their British counterparts. Estimates are two- thirds New York levels. Do not get caught up in the battle for star lots such as King Kong (1942 American re-issue est £1,200-£1,800). Go for undervalued arty posters by names such as Saul Bass and Albert Hirschfeld. Bass's Bonjour Tristesse (1958) with stylised teardrop is est £200-£300.

COUNTRYWIDE

Leamington Spa: Old fairground collectables - a 1949 dodgem car, a 1934 Brooklands petrol-driven speedway car, 1920s hoop-la stall and swingboats, Edwardian carving, among sporting and motoring memorabilia, next Saturday (10.30am): The Old-Gor-Ray factory, Clarendon Street, Leamington Spa. Antique Amusement Company (01223 813041).

Salisbury: Books on Stonehenge in the library of the late Professor Richard Atkinson in a book, map, print and ephemera sale, Wednesday (11am). Woolley & Wallis, 51 Castle Street (01722 411422).

Cannock, West Midlands: Contents of a snooker club including 10 full- size tables, Thursday (10am): Capital Nightspot, Wimblebury Road. Stevens, Champion & Slater (0121-643 1942).

Barnsley: Bottles, pot lids, posters, advertising signs, kitchenalia, pharmacists' items, early wine bottles (sealed and unsealed), salt glaze pots, whisky jars, next Saturday (11am). BBR Auctions, Elsecar Heritage, 5 Ironworks Row, Wath Road, Elsecar (01226 745156).

Hertford: New garden machinery, power tools, lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, chain saws, Rotovators, drills, angle grinders, Wednesday (10.30am) at the former Addis factory, Ware Road. Hawbery King (0181-343 7373).

Clifton: New carpets, Wednesday (11am): Walmgate Supplies, Green Lane Trading Estate. de Rome (01274 734116).

Crewkerne: Medals, Krugerrands, £5 gold pieces, sovereigns, Thursday (11am), following general sale in Taunton, Wednesday (9.30am). Lawrence, South Street, Crewkerne (01460 73041) and The Corfield Hall, Magdala Street, Taunton (01823 330596).

FAIRS

Chelsea Antiques, Old Town Hall, King's Road, Tuesday until 18 March (Penman 01444 482514).

Tatton Park Antiques, Tatton Park, near Knutsford, Wednesday-Sunday (Bailey 01277 362662).

Kenilworth Antiques, Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth, Tuesday-Saturday (Sumner 01672 870727).

Bath Decorative & Antiques, Thursday-Sunday, The Pavilion, North Parade Road (Coleman 01225 442215).

n Countrywide: Antiques Trade Gazette (0171-930 4957), Government Auction News (0171-928 9001, hotline 0891 887700).