Art and antiques news from 2010

EXPERIMENTAL technology designed to determine the age of ceramics by scientific means is now being put to use at the heart of the Chinese works of art trade.

IT has been revealed that the sum paid for the contents of Dumfries House in Ayrshire was £30m. The contents were acquired for the nation with the help of a loan from the Prince of Wales shortly before they were due to be sold at auction in 2007.

WARTIME works by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946) are iconic, sought after and scarce – a potent commercial combination.

THE famous Amen series of diamond point engraved Jacobite goblets, made c.1745-50, have long been emblems of Scottish nationalism. Yet it is widely assumed that the engraver of many of them was English.

THEODORE Bruce Auctions, based in Adelaide since the 19th century, have established a “mid-tier” saleroom in Sydney.

THANKS to a clever bit of detective work by one of its curators, the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle has been able to reunite a porcelain cup and saucer that have separated for over 200 years.

MASSACHUSETTS has become the 14th state to ban the sale of novelty cigarette lighters.

FIREFIGHTERS are investigating the cause of a blaze at an antiques centre in Chipping Norton on September 5.

A COLLECTION of 85 bosuns’ calls was among items stolen from a home in Milan in early August. Most of the calls were British, but there were also examples from the USA, Italy, China and India.

WITH the new auction season getting underway, the London houses have been rushing to announce their star lots as the treasures from aristocratic collections continue to emerge in the saleroom.

AUCTIONEERS Bonhams and Irish saleroom Adam’s have decided to end their 12-year arrangement of holding joint sales in Dublin.

LONDON-based Russian art specialists MacDougall’s have appointed three people to establish an Old Masters and 19th century European art department.

THE October 8 toy sale at Nagel in Stuttgart will include this Märklin gauge-1 model of the Stuttgart train station.

THE eighth annual Dealers versus Auctioneers football match ended in a resounding victory for the dealers, thanks in no small part to a hat-trick from the man who founded the event, Edenbridge dealer Lennox Cato.

An independent report has confirmed that antiques are environmentally friendly with a piece of antique furniture likely to have a carbon footprint 16 times lower than that of a newly manufactured item.

THIS 8½in (21cm) English porcelain jug painted with a cavalryman on horseback probably dates from c.1817 when, following rioting in the spring, magistrates in Manchester decided to form the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry.

DEALERS Down Under have successfully fought off the recommendations of a government report that threatened to disrupt the status quo in the Australian art market.

A COLLECTION of Augustus John drawings, consigned by the family of Dame Elizabeth Taylor, will be sold by a West London auction house on September 28.

LAST week's BBC Two programme, Dragons' Den saw two of the investors stake £100,000 in return for a 40 per cent share of the online valuation business ValueMyStuffNow.com.

PIERS Motley has taken over the Bicton Street Auction Rooms in Exmouth from Martin Spencer-Thomas who has retired after 25 years as an auctioneer and valuer in Devon.