Art and antiques news from 2004

THE Bourne casket, a Restoration needlework casket that failed to sell when offered by Netherhampton Salerooms earlier this year, has been sold by private treaty to the Lancashire Museum Services.

LAPADA will return to The Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse for their 2005 Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair following last month’s inaugural event there. It will again be organised by Ingrid Nilson.

VALUABLE Native American artefacts were stolen in a smash-and-grab raid on an auctioneer’s car in Surrey last week. A substantial reward is being offered for the safe return of the stolen items.

AUCTION revenues have leapt by nearly a half, year on year, for the third quarter of 2004 at Sotheby’s. But increased costs have meant that they have also registered a slightly bigger loss.

WEST Midlands Police have arrested three people from Birmingham in connection with the theft of Staffordshire figures from the Antiques for Everyone fair after the items were spotted on eBay.

THE well advertised sale of Railwayana & Military Memorabilia was held in H.J Pugh & Co’s Ledbury salerooms on the 13th October and was another successful auction.

POLICE investigating the theft of Tang and Yuan dynasty jewellery and body ornaments from the British Museum on October 29-30 believe the raid could be linked to the theft of Chinese jades from the Victoria and Albert Museum earlier last month.

DMG Antiques Fairs have put up £350,000 for a new building at the Newark and Nottinghamshire Showground and secured the venue for another 20 years.

NERVES in New York’s art market, just like those in the New York stock market, were settled by the swift resolution of the US presidential election.

NEXT spring Caroline Penman launches a new fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall in King’s Road, London SW3. It will be called The King’s Road Antiques Fair and will run from March 11 to 13.

COMPLETING this year’s LAPADA survey carries an additional incentive – the prospect of a week’s holiday in Jamaica.

IN the competitive world of domestic tablewares, the name of Spode has remained among the very best since production started c.1770.

THE Chicago Clearing Company, the US firm trading in auction house class action certificates, will be in London again this week.

H.J. PUGH & Co. of Ledbury (5% buyer's premium) will be offering a selection of Railwayana, Military Memorabilia and Other Collectables at auction on Saturday 13th November.

CLARION Events, organisers of the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fairs, have successfully completed a £45m management buy-out from their parent company, the Earls Court & Olympia Group (EC&O). They emphasise their continued commitment to the antiques fairs.

THE current fashionable status of antiquities and the charm of animal subject matter proved an irresistible combination for collectors last week when Christie’s offered the late Leo Mildenberg’s collection of ancient animals. The two-day dispersal of the German-born collector’s Noah’s ark, in London on October 26 and 27, totalled just over £3m.

BACK in April in Antiques Trade Gazette No 1633, we pictured and discussed an unusual Derby porter mug decorated with industrial scenes of two Mancunian foundries which sold at Bonhams in London for £3800.

JAGUAR Fairs say they will launch an event to fill the gap now created between the Swinderby and Newark fairs.

DMG Antique Fairs have reconfirmed their commitment to the new three-day format Newark fairs for 2005. Acknowledging that many people had voiced strong views that had not gone unheard, managing director Jason Franks emphasised dmg’s long-term commitment to the fair in terms of promotion and investment linked to a weekend slot.

GLASSWORKS by Emile Gallé thought to be worth over £1.5m have been stolen from a Swiss museum. Thieves seized 15 items by the French master craftsman in the raid on the Neumann Foundation, housed in the castle of Gingins overlooking Lake Geneva, on October 27.