Art and antiques news from 2010

NEXT summer’s Olympia fair is reverting to British management and organisation, with owners Clarion Events taking the reins back from US entrepreneur David Lester.

JUST one week after Christie’s held their series of London sales from the cellars, storehouses and attics of Althorp, ancestral home of the Spencer family, Sotheby’s announced that they are to hold an autumn auction of attic treasures from Chatsworth, the Derbyshire home of the Dukes of Devonshire.

WHEN it comes to modern prints, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) stands in a league with only Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol as artists who have made sums getting on for £1m at auction. However, Bonhams broke through that barrier on July 13 when they offered an extremely rare version of one of the Norwegian artist’s best known images.

WHEN the Commission for Retail Preservation was set up by Kensington and Chelsea Council in 2006, the borough’s mayor at the time, Tim Ahern, was quoted in an official release, as follows:

IT may be a specialised collecting area, but antique bottles have plenty of enthusiasts at all levels. In the sub-sector of antique wine bottles, this 7in (18cm) high example ticked many of the boxes when it came up for sale in Exeter at Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood last week.

BONHAMS have promoted Jon Baddeley, their head of collectors’ sales worldwide, to be managing director of their Knightsbridge operation in London with immediate effect. A new head is also expected to be appointed for the Bond Street operation.

THE antiques trade in Portobello Road has suffered another blow, with the demise of The Good Fairy market now confirmed. Added to what has gone before, it calls into question Kensington and Chelsea Council’s entire vision for the borough as set out in its Core Strategy, currently being reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate, which talks time and again about how Portobello should be protected as a Special District Centre.

AT 11 1/2 stone and 4ft 3in (1.3m) wide, it is big enough to bathe in. Baron Raby’s wine cistern was ordered from the workshops of goldsmith Philip Rollos in 1705 as part of his ambassadorial plate in his capacity as Ambassador Extraordinary to the King of Prussia in Berlin.

A SERIES of guidelines designed to encourage standard and proper practice in the fine art auction industry in China were unveiled on June 31. They are the first measures of their type since sales by auction were permitted to resume in the People’s Republic 23 years ago.

HAD it not been for the headline-grabbing and record-breaking J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the latest Old Master auctions in London would have seemed a bit flat.

THE Lyon & Turnbull sale at Edinburgh got off to a splendid start when Lot 1, a Worcester porcelain plate from the Duke of Gloucester service, c.1770, sold at £12,000.

EXTENDING the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) to the estates of dead artists after 2012 poses a serious threat to the 60,000 jobs the UK art industry supports. That is the view of the view of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF), which is calling on Brussels to delay the move and allow all member states to adopt the derogation until ARR is accepted globally.

KEY to BAMF’s cause is the European Commission’s (EC) failure to follow the terms of its own Directive.

THE latest Contemporary art sales in London were a little flatter than expected, but Modern British art generated a batch of stand-out prices.

TO many people, Geoffrey Godden is indivisible from English porcelain. The scholar and author is a name on every ceramic enthusiast’s bookshelves through the many books on English ceramics written during the course of his 60 years of collecting and study.

INVESTORS and artists in Australia are in uproar at proposals to ban self-managed pensions from putting their money in art.

POLICE in Surrey are seeking information about this man, pictured here, in connection with the theft of six paintings and Georgian writing desk worth total of around £25,000 from an antiques shop in Dorking earlier this month.

SALVO, the leading architectural salvage and garden antiques fair, is being repositioned to capitalise on the increasing popularity of reclaimed artefacts among upmarket architects, designers and decorators.

WEST Sussex auctioneer Rupert Toovey was ordained deacon at Chichester cathedral on June 26.

TRADERS and campaigners at Portobello Road are urging fellow dealers and members of the public to attend the planning meeting regarding the redevelopment of The Good Fairy Market taking place at Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall on Tuesday, July 6.