Art and antiques news from 2010

SPECIALIST dealers believe fake medals from the XXIXth Olympiad in Beijing are appearing for sale on eBay.

SCIENTISTS in the United States have unveiled a ground-breaking piece of technology to identify fake pictures.

IT was undoubtedly a challenging year for many but two of the UK’s leading regional art and antiques salerooms enjoyed record sales in 2009.

AN agreement over the disputed Blue Period Picasso painting The Absinthe Drinker may well lead to a clearer legal definition of what constitutes art sold under Nazi duress.

AS part of a decision to downsize, St Joseph's Convent at Haunton in Staffordshire sold the remainder of their collection of oak furniture and accessories by Robert Thompson (1876-1955) at Richard Winterton of Lichfield.

The London Coin Fair has been sold by its proprietors of over 30 years, Frances and Howard Simmons, to Mike and Lu Vessid.

MARK Law, the former chairman of Partridge Fine Art, has issued a statement confirming his intent to sue the previous owners of the Bond Street dealership for the money he has laid out for the purchase of the firm since 2005.

AUCTIONEERS across Britain showed a remarkable degree of stoicism as they battled to hold sales while knee-deep in snow. Fortunately it was a relatively quiet time of the year for the sales calendar.

AMONG the first major casualties of the winter weather is IACF’s third fair at the RAF Swinderby site. With no permanent buildings at the airfield and the long-term forecast predicting the coldest winter for many years, the organisers have already announced the cancellation of the next fair scheduled for February 2-3.

THE extraordinary saga over Partridge Fine Art has taken another twist with a legal row over claims of long-term systematic fraud and faking by the Bond Street dealership.

The demand for golden age English clocks has been on something of a high for several years now and shows little sign of abating.

THE recession continues to take a heavy toll on the New York fairs scene and the first casualty of the new year looks set to be the Haughtons' International Fine Art Fair.

FOUR centuries of contact with the North American continent – exploration, trade, settlement, war and missionary activity – mean that, just occasionally, spectacular Native American art objects are found in the United Kingdom.

Traditionally a glass sale is always one of the last pre-Christmas auctions in the London rooms.