Art and antiques news from 2005

LIKE so much material where the name is so much part of the game, the exquisite objets d’art fashioned in the Russian workshops of Carl Fabergé have attracted copyists, repro-producers and outright forgers.

Nantwich, Cheshire auctioneers Peter Wilson have completed work to a new entrance hall, right.

September will see the end of an era and a Kensington Church Street landmark when John Jesse, the pioneering decorative arts dealer, shuts up shop following the expiration of his lease.

Never was an event more aptly named than Brian and Anna Haughton’s International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, the veteran ceramics fest which celebrated its 24th staging from June 16-19.

As celebrations abound for the most famous of all seamen, another great British admiral was being remembered in spectacular fashion at the Nottingham auction rooms of Mellors & Kirk on June 16. The subject of a fierce engagement between collectors was the so-called Rodney Jug.

THIEVES escaped with £10,000 worth of furniture and antiques in a raid on a dealer in Staffordshire.

Assembled family and friends witnessed a fashionable fusion of styles at All Saints, Worlington in Suffolk on June 25 when ATG deputy editor Roland Arkell married client services manager Elizabeth Lardner.

THE Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers welcomed six new Honorary Associate Members at their biannual dinner in London last week.

English folk art with an American accent. Not only did the pair of child portraits seen at the Athenaeum in Bury St Edmunds on June 15 represent charming examples of early 19th century folk art, they also carried the name of an artist who would move to America shortly after they were painted.

IT was just three weeks into the First World War when British destroyers engaged the enemy off the Heligoland Bight near Denmark.

CLASS-action legal specialists Garden City Group (GCG) believe compensation cheques linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s collusion case will be sent out by August.

Non-EU imports and exports rise, with surges for Switzerland and others SLIGHT rises in UK art and antiques import and export totals for 2004 hide far more dramatic swings when assessed on a nation-by-nation basis.

A student has discovered a five-volume inventory of the possessions of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, while cataloguing in the National Archives at Kew.

Scottish auctioneer Paul Roberts has been awarded a coveted business honour in recognition of his outstanding personal achievement in business.

London turned up the heat in the market for Contemporary art when both Sotheby’s and Christie’s achieved outstanding results at their June evening sales.

Dealers are being warned to be vigilant following a suspected cheque fraud at the Summer Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair.

Stair Galleries and Restoration will move into new headquarters in Hudson New York in August.

The July sales of Asian art will be notable for bringing two newly discovered pieces to the market, one in London and the other in Salisbury.

Horners Auctioneers in Acle, near Norwich lost half the lots for their auction when thieves broke in the night before the sale.

In the centre of Lincoln stands the Westgate Water Tower, built between 1905 and 1911 to provide the city with clean drinking water, but also as a permanent reminder of the major typhoid epidemic that hit the city between November 1904 and April 1905.