The return of the two storey terrace, once housing the Tim Olsen Gallery, to antiques and art from a high fashion dress shop, counters a trend which has decimated antique and art industry occupied shops in the suburb.
Lucio's, a restaurant over which many a big art and antique deal was completed, will also be delighted as will the real estate industry.
The property was advertised for lease at $150,000 a year late last year which is just in line with existing asking prices with the benefit of a garage and rear lane access and an upstairs area larger than it appears from outside.
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Although occasionally with rival interests, both art and antique sections of the industry appear delighted with the lease which means that not only would the suburb be home to a serious competitor to Sotheby's Australia, but another operator would be taking oriental art seriously.
Bonhams Australia will return some Asian art expertise, backed by its London office, to a district where several antique shops chanted its mantra years ago.
This is at a time the appearance of any Chinese lot appears to be gathered up at premium prices by "trawling" local and international dealers (They buy lot after lot almost indiscriminately hoping one will turn out to be a gem.).
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With "Buddhist credentials" and a similar target customer base, the move even promises to return a little karma to a district where Robert Bleakley put up his shingle nearly thirty years ago when he launched the local branch of Sotheby's now Bonhams most serious rival.
Prominent members of the antique trade have been lost either to Redfern (Martyn Cook) or Kensington (Josef Lebovic) or to private dealing (Asian art dealer Ray Tregaskis), or to the trade altogether.
Cook returned for the party held to launch the premises on Friday, February 25 and the remaining banner holder for the trade in Queen Street, once the epicentre of this trade to whom Cook was a neighbour, Georgina Howell, also came to give encouragement.
Art dealer Christopher Day, a member of the Australasian Antique and Art Dealers Association, who had only to walk from his gallery across the street and also hopes to benefit from an increase in the passing parade, was among the guests present.
Guests spilled out onto the pavement as champagne and an overflow of fine savouries were served on a hot summer evening, the only seriously missing absentees being some of the specialists the opening was designed to introduce.
The Aboriginal art department, which had a small display from its offering of works as part of the first auction series in May, was out in full force, but the latest staff appointment, Litsa Veldekis who is the new head of Australian and International Art, was at her own farewell drinks at the Menzies group that evening.
She also needed to pack for the following day's trip to New York for a familiarisation bout with members of the parent group.
For seven years with the Menzies group, the very diplomatic Litsa was the only obvious candidate for the glaring hole/blank space that stared out of Bonhams Australia's directory as it establishes its strategy of offering a full range of basic auction operations Down Under.
She starts with the company on March 14 with a first sale of Australian art postponed from May until August. She was not as missed as some of the other lesser-knowns because of her past experience.
Although she has taken a very backroom profile at Menzies to proprietor Rodney Menzies himself, she would have had dealings with much of the art trade and needed little introduction - although the massive changing of the guard that has taken place over the holiday period must leave some clients wondering who is where.
From a specialist capacity Litsa had progressed at Menzies to head of art in 2007 and promotion to CEO in 2009.
One of the more exotic asides to her CV was her appearance on episode seven of The Apprentice with Mark Bouris, but after graduating with a Master of Arts Degree (curatorship and modern art) from the University of Sydney she has enjoyed a frequent profile in the industry such as a year at the Marlene Antico Fine Art Gallery in Sydney and coordination of the Paddington Art Prize.
She re-joins an industry facing its toughest management year as artists' resale royalties come into force, and when many are looking to leave it or return to selling the work of long dead artists who do not quality for it.
In turnover rich Australian art, where auctioneers clients' money on deposit can be a big earner, she will be joined at Bonhams Australia by Alex Clark. He has been in the industry eight years working at Christie's, Sotheby's Australia and Joel Fine Art and Bonhams and Goodman.
Bonhams new Asian art specialist, with that title and the most prominent specialist with other commitments that evening, is Yvett Klein, who was born in Shanghai. She completed her secondary school studies in China and oh so valuably speaks both Chinese and English. A BA degree in communications from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology must also be an asset, although doubtless Bonhams will employ local publicists combined with the PR strength it has in London.
Building on her Master of Arts Degree (Art History) from the University of Sydney she tackles the huge world of Orientalia on the basis of a number of publications including an introduction about the Terracotta Warriors, in conjunction with the exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. He grandfather was incidentally a brush-and-ink painter and she trained as a calligrapher.
As well as being an authority, perhaps on Chinese lantern slides if ever there could be one, she's had a briefing on Buddha and Confucius. Sufficient enough, that is, to publish Chinese Lantern Slides: The Life Story of Gautama Buddha and the Journey of Confucius in Sydney University Museum News. At the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority she identified and researched Chinese bronze artefacts of the type known from the Shang and Zhou period.
A little Buddhist karma may be needed in a two storey building where staff with a pro active history and rivalry, will be seated closely, but not cheek by jowl.
The team, including trade elders such as Dalia Stanley, will report to the dapper James Hendy, a specialist in decorative arts, who has seen the company through the rigours of the Owston sale and the challenges of the Fink French furniture final auction.
Hendy is understood not to be a Buddhist but his quietly modulated enthusiasm recalls that of the Buddhist Robert Bleakley who set up Sotheby's Australia in a similar building in Paddington's Gurner Street, not far away in the early 1980s.
That two storey terrace was then occupied by the tribal art gallery, the Art of Man Gallery, and Sotheby's took a room upstairs. Current traders in tribal art, Christopher and Anna Thorpe who are neighbours of Bonhams in Paddington Street, are looking to Bonhams to boost the depleted Paddington passing parade.
Oriental art will be sold in the decorative arts sales, Fine Furniture and Decorative Arts will be held on May 8 in the middle of a week of sales.
