Phillips opened its European headquarters in a former Post Office sorting station in Howick Place, Victoria, in 2008. The location, in an enclave south of St. James's Park, has proved a taxi ride too far for some clients, said dealers.
Frost's Wine
A bottle of Chateau Lafite dating from the year that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated is among the wines that television interviewer David Frost is selling tomorrow.
The 1865 Lafite is one of more than 300 bottles from the cellar of Frost's house in Chelsea, west London. The 81-lot entry may raise as much as 120,000 pounds, Christie's said.
Lafite has become the must-have Bordeaux for Chinese wine buyers. In October, three bottles of the 1869 vintage sourced from the chateau each made HK$1.8 million ($230,000) in Hong Kong, auction records for single bottles of wine. Frost's 1865 vintage is estimated at 3,000 pounds to 5,000 pounds.
"These bottles have been lovingly collected by an enthusiast of older wines," Christie's specialist Carolyn Holmes said. "They're very dusty and the labels aren't great, though the levels are good."
The 1865 Lafite, one of the chateau's more highly rated 19th-century vintages, was tasted in magnum in 2002 by Master of Wine Nick Bulleid, who said it was perfectly preserved.
Frost is also selling bottles of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1853 -- the first vintage -- and Chateau Margaux 1870, estimated respectively at 500 pounds to 700 pounds and 3,000 pounds to 5,000 pounds.
Michelangelo Fresco
Drawings for a fresco that Michelangelo was to paint in a head-to-head competition with Leonardo da Vinci may fetch as much as 5 million pounds at Christie's London on July 5.