Art and antiques news from 2010

HAVING appeared to wash their hands of their obligation to undertake a study of the effect of the Artist’s Resale Right, the European Commission has finally agreed that they will look into the matter early in 2011.

GENERATING a 25-minute bidding battle at Halls' sale in Shrewsbury on October 20, The Earl of Oxford's Roan or Bloody shouldered Arabian by John Wootton (c.1682-1764) set a new house record when it was finally knocked down to an anonymous UK buyer for £326,000.

THE Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have issued further important guidelines regarding the sale of antique rhinoceros horn.

A YEAR after the move to the Lincolnshire Showground, Swallow Fairs are changing the format of their Antiques and Home Show. To take effect from the next event on November 29 to December 1, the show will now officially become a three-day fair running from Monday to Wednesday inclusive.

IN a week when the 1968 European Cup winner’s medal awarded to George Best sold for £130,000, the appearance of more blue-chip sporting memorabilia on the auction market has been announced.

THREE people have been arrested in Germany in connection with a multi-million pound art fraud involving a number of apparently major 20th century oils sold on the international market in recent years.

AN interest in wine and a holiday to Britain 49 years ago led New Englanders Alden and Connie Lank to their first silver wine labels.

THE world auction record for a Chinese ceramic of work of art toppled during Sotheby's latest week-long Asian sales series of classical, modern and contemporary Chinese art, watches, wine and jewellery in Hong Kong.

THE spectre of a nationalised Drouot haunted delegates at the Annual Congress of French auctioneers’ union SYMEV, held at Artcurial’s Champs-Elysées premises earlier this month.

FOUND earlier this year in a house near Oxford where they were carrying out a probate valuation, auctioneers Mallams offered for sale this seminal painting Bravo! by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946) on October 13.

FOR decades one of the world’s leading modern art dealerships, the Jan Krugier Gallery will close its New York headquarters at the end of this year and transfer all its operations to Geneva, Switzerland.

A NEW strict liability rule under the Bribery Act exposes companies to prosecution if they do not put necessary procedures in place to police those acting on their behalf.

A COLLECTION of 11 antique violin bows valued at £110,000 is now feared stolen after they were left on a train.

THIS watercolour sketch comes from a remarkable 120-page First World War journal penned by Lieutenant Kenneth Edwin Wootton of the 1/21 Battalion, London Regt Tank Corps.

SHOWGROUND fair dealers are reminded to be vigilant after a visitor to the recent Newark fair had his pockets slashed.

WEST Dean College are to launch a ‘Conservation for horologists’ course next May.

Peter Robinson, principal auctioneer at Thomas Watson’s in Darlington, is currently in Buenos Aires taking part in the Carrera Copacabana historic car rally, which began on October 21.

Until May this year it was still in the ground in a Cumbrian field. Just five months later it was under the auctioneers’ hammer. Last week this Roman bronze cavalry parade helmet dating from the 1st-2nd century AD, sold for £2m (plus premium) to an anonymous UK private telephone bidder.

SUCH was the media coverage, and the worldwide interest, within the first three hours Sotheby's sale of the contents from the attics at Chatsworth had outstripped their modest £2.5m estimate for the entire three days.

THIS year's National Antiques Week is November 15-21 with the aim of the annual promotion being to raise the public profile of the antiques trade and encourage young people to visit shops and fairs.