Art and antiques news from 2010

A MANUSCRIPTS dealer from Cheltenham has uncovered a major theft of letters from an American university. The case is now being investigated by the FBI.

SYDNEY auction house Menzies Arts Brands recorded the highest price ever paid for an Australian artwork when Sidney Nolan's First Class Marksman 1946 sold to an anonymous phone bidder for Aus$4.5m (£2.9m) at their latest sale.

INTERNATIONAL Antiques and Collectors’ Fairs (IACF) are to pilot a one-day Monday fair at Newbury Racecourse with two dates confirmed for this year of June 28 and August 2.

SUSSEX police want to speak to the man, pictured here, in connection with two thefts at Gorringes auction house in Lewes.

CUTTLESTONES auctioneers are to host a talk on the Staffordshire Hoard to help raise funds to conserve the treasure.

THE classical horse head with powerful Art Deco styling is among the best known of all the 28 different René Lalique glass car mascots.

THE Northumberland auctioneer Jim Railton who was charged with offering and advertising 54 wild birds’ eggs for sale, has now been fined £1000 plus costs at Alnwick Magistrates Court.

THE organisers of London's new luxury fair Masterpiece are closing their books this week for the 2010 launch, satisfied with having reached their target of around 100 exhibitors.

WHEN Aaron Dean was asked to catalogue a local collection of Modern Firsts at Gorringes' Lewes saleroom, he knew he was dealing with something special.

DISGRACED New York dealer Lawrence Salander, erstwhile co-owner of Manhattan’s Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, has admitted to orchestrating a $120m art fraud.

MANY people are content to put together one major collection in their lifetime. To assemble one, disperse it at a major saleroom, set about doing the same thing all over again and then hold a second auction within the space of just over a decade takes some doing.

THE Staffordshire Hoard has been saved for the nation – and a further £1.7m appeal has been launched to pay for its conservation, study and display.

A SPECIALIST conservation event will take place at the Royal Asiatic Society on April 13.

A VERY Italian tale involving an important collection of papers that once belonged to the ‘father of art history’, Giorgio Vasari, took a new twist last month when a court injunction halted its sale by auction at the eleventh hour.

A REALLY top-notch example of an otherwise relatively ordinary die-cast has the capability to produce a surprisingly strong price.

THE Portobello Road antiques trade have suffered another blow after the shutters finally came down on a long-established Saturday market. The early morning Good Fairy Market closed in the first week of March with no indication given that it will reopen as an antiques market.

THE escalating popularity of post-War Northern artists was proved twice last week as auction records for both Helen Bradley and William Turner were set at Bonhams.

THE New York International Tribal and Textile Arts Show, normally held in May, has been cancelled this year.

FOLLOWING the confidential settlement made between The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation and the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Picasso’s 1903 portrait of his friend Angel Fernandez de Soto will be offered for sale at Christie’s in London on June 23 with an estimate of £30-40m.

WILTSHIRE auctioneers Netherhampton Salerooms were celebrating a new house record on March 3 after a disbound album of Far Eastern topographical drawings sold for £43,000.