Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Last month, I took a gamble on a pair of wonderful pink-glazed bowls by the South African artist and ceramicist Hylton Nel at an auction in Johannesburg.
Although I’d requested a shipping estimate more than a week ahead of time, the auction house didn’t get back to me. An online shipping calculator I found via Google suggested the bowls would cost about £150 to send back to London, which seemed about right.
In the end it cost more than £250, on top of the 5 per cent import VAT levied on artworks imported into the UK from South Africa. I also ended up paying almost £200 more than I expected in currency and foreign transaction fees (choose your credit cards wisely).
Although I have no regrets about the purchase — I absolutely love the bowls, and they cost maybe half what a UK gallery would have charged — it wasn’t the first time I’d paid more than I banked on when buying at auction abroad.
“I would treat [buying abroad] with suitable trepidation,” advises Hampshire-based antiques dealer and interior designer Max Rollitt. He cites an “experienced” client who recently paid £25,000 for a set of 12 chairs at a Paris auction, only to discover afterwards that the seats were too low.
“He knows that if he puts them back into Christie’s, he’ll be lucky to get half his money back,” Rollitt says. “That’s why I prefer to buy from dealers at [international] fairs, because you can return it.”
There are other risks to consider before bidding abroad. Sometimes pieces won at auction can be blocked from export by government officials who think they are of enough cultural value to be kept in the country — something Rollitt has encountered more than once when trying to export pictures from Italy. And objects made from endangered species, such as elephant ivory, tortoise-shell or rosewood, even if antique, can be prevented from entering the UK.
Then there are the transport and customs fees to consider. Since Brexit, art, antiques and collectors’ items imported from the EU into Great Britain are charged import VAT of 5 per cent, but items that don’t fall into those categories are subject to the standard 20 per cent rate.
However, if you’re willing to take on the risks and the import VAT, international auctions can open you up to some terrific (and terrifically priced) finds.
Many of my best buys have come from the Swedish auction aggregator Auctionet, where you can find vintage Swedish flatweave rugs, beloved of interior designers, for a fraction of what you’d pay in the UK (try keywords “rollakan” or “rya”). I’ve picked a couple by the mid-century rug designer Ingegerd Silow and though neither ended up working with my decor — rollakans are rather rustic — I was able to auction them off in London for more than I paid.
The site is also good for Swedish art under £300 (several of the UK’s celebrated “affordable art” dealers source almost entirely from Auctionet) as well as ceramics and lighting. One of my favourite objects in my house is the 20th-century hall lantern I won from a Stockholm auction via Auctionet for £73 and had rewired at Fiat Lux Chandeliers in west London for about the same price. Crucially, Auctionet provides shipping costs up front, and they are very reasonable — I had a rug shipped to my door from Stockholm for around £80, less than what I’d pay to courier it from most parts of England.
If Swedish decorative objects aren’t your thing, have a browse on international auction house aggregators including LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable, and country-specific ones such as Drouot (for France). Invaluable casts a particularly wide net geographically speaking, and looking through past sales of specific items and artists will guide you to salerooms that sell the things you like (which is how I ended up buying Hylton Nel ceramics from a saleroom in South Africa).
Another tip is that auction houses with salerooms in multiple countries can ferry customers’ purchases for below-market rates. (When I bought an antique desk at Bonhams in Edinburgh earlier this year, the company was able to transport it down to its London saleroom for half of what a third-party courier quoted.)
As a general rule, I’d advise limiting yourself to categories you know really well — even an experienced dealer such as Rollitt says he won’t buy carpets or pictures he hasn’t seen in person — or to prices you’ll feel OK about if the purchase doesn’t work out (my limit is about £300).
And try to get a handle on costs before you bid. Call — don’t email — the auction house, who can put you in touch with couriers for quotes and outline the customs charges you should expect to pay (they will also need to provide the paperwork to prove that a piece is antique). Importing items into the UK is easier now than it was in the months immediately after Brexit, but shippers can still overcharge you, and getting a refund from the company or HMRC can be a pain.
But to have something unusual that you really love, and that you worked a bit harder to get? I often find those are the pieces I treasure the most.
Lauren Indvik is the FT’s fashion editor
Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on X or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
