For sale: used airplane, nearly complete, fragile, single seat, by modern standards slow and uncomfortable. Sixty years old. Price: about $2 million.

Serious collectors of aviation and military memorabilia are being sought by an auction house that's selling an original U.K. World War II fighter.

The former Royal Air Force Supermarine Spitfire was built in April 1945 and is said to be one of only 44 airworthy examples of the fighter, which played a key part in the Battle of Britain.

``The sale of an aircraft so linked to the history and very survival of Great Britain has enormous significance for us here at Bonhams & Goodman,'' said Tim Goodman, chief executive of the Australia-based auction house that joined the Bonhams in September 2003.

This is a handout photograph released to the media on Friday, July 11, 2008, of a 1945 Supermarine Spitfire MK XVI aircraft which is due to be auctioned by Bonhams & Goodman's in Nelson, South Island,New Zealand on Sept, 14, 2008

The restored Spitfire MK XVI, RAF Serial No. TE 330, will be the centerpiece of his inaugural auction of aircraft and cars in New Zealand, to be held at Nelson, South Island, on Sept. 14.

According to the New Zealand Herald's Web Site, the sellers are the Subritzky family of North Shore, Auckland, vintage- aircraft collectors who acquired the Spitfire 11 years ago. The family recently advertised the plane on http://www.trademe.co.nz without attracting a firm offer, the Web site operator said.

It flew in the 1957 Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and was displayed at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs until 1997.

Galleries Opening

Two big-name galleries will be opening spaces in London in October in time for the week of the Frieze Art Fair.

Yvon Lambert, who began dealing contemporary artworks in Paris in 1966, now has branches at 550 West 21st Street and the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, Paris, and will be inaugurating a 7,000 square-foot showroom in Hoxton Square on Oct. 16, the gallery said in an e-mailed statement.

The space, occupying the ground floor and mezzanine levels of a former municipal building, will be in the same square as Jay Jopling's White Cube Gallery. The inaugural show will feature work by the Mexican artist Carlos Amorales. Lambert is also a regular exhibitor at the Frieze and Basel fairs.

In addition, Sebastian + Barquet, the 544 West 24th Street modern and contemporary design gallery, will be opening a smaller 66 square-meter space at Bruton Place, Mayfair, on Oct. 8.

The gallery said in an e-mailed statement it will mount five shows a year of 1940s to 1960s design, beginning with ``New Hope,'' curated by architect Eric Parry. This will include works by George Nakashima, Paul Evans and Phillip Lloyd Powell.

Sebastian + Barquet will also be exhibiting at the DesignArt London fair, which this year takes place in Berkeley Square, starting on Oct. 15.

In June 2007, Sebastien + Barquet's New York gallery sold a prototype of the ``Lockheed'' chair by U.K.-based design artist Marc Newson for $2.2 million to a Californian collector.

Pontormo Sells

London Old Master dealer Clovis Whitfield said he has sold a painting by the Italian renaissance artist Pontormo, priced at $16 million.

Pontormo (1494-1556) was one of the leading exponents of the so-called ``Mannerist'' style in early 16th-century Florence.

The artist's 19-inch-high oil-on-panel portrait of the banker's daughter Francesca Capponi as St. Mary Magdalene is one of 20 Old Master paintings being exhibited by Whitfield at Partridge Fine Art in New Bond Street.

Bankruptcy Law

The Pontormo was one of the works that Whitfield was due to show at the Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York, last October. The gallery was locked under a court order hours before the exhibition was set to open and Whitfield took back the works he'd been intending to display. Lawrence Salander filed for personal bankruptcy protection on Nov. 5.

Whitfield, speaking in a telephone interview, said that about half the works at Partridge came from the aborted Salander- O'Reilly show. The Pontormo was bought by a private American collector soon after the London exhibition opened on June 4, he said. It runs through July 18.

``The sale bucks a trend,'' said Whitfield. ``It shows that even when the auction houses are so dominant and galleries are closing down, Old Master dealers can still sell major works.''