Art and antiques news from 2010

IN the week when dealer John Hobbs was due to meet his former restorer a London court, Dreweatts have announced they will be selling his stock at auction in December.

THIS exceptional Napoleonic French prisoner of war model proved the highlight of the latest sale conducted by Clevedon Salerooms, near Bristol.

TEN leading Parisian Old Master galleries have announced plans to launch a select new fair in the French capital next year.

FUNDING for the Portable Antiquities Scheme is to be cut by 15 per cent in real terms over the next four years, with the biggest impact likely to be on staff costs.

LIGHT has been shed on the £52,000 price tag awarded an oak and gilt-bronze coffer on stand at a Sworders Interiors sale.

THE Professional Footballers Association were active at Spink's latest sale, successfully bidding £210,000 to acquire a Great War Victoria Cross group awarded to Second Lieutenant D.S. Bell, Yorkshire Regiment.

NOBLE Investments, the parent company of coin and medal specialists Baldwins, have acquired the stock, reference library and client database of Sussex-based stamp dealers Leo Baresch Limited for an undisclosed sum.

THE association of art and antiques dealers LAPADA has appointed Lord Chadlington, founder of PR giant Shandwick, as their new chairman.

AFTER years of TV programmes that have approached antiques using the controversial gameshow format, we finally have a proper champion in the shape of Kirstie Allsopp – and it’s not even an antiques show.

It could be less than a month until the date is named when antiquities dealer Malcolm Hay will be extradited to serve a four-year jail sentence in Greece – on the strength of no credible evidence.

HELPED by the boom in Chinese works of art, UK regional salerooms continue to rewrite the record books. Following the £43m vase at Bainbridges of Ruislip, Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis posted two more seven-figure sums for jades.

DEALERS are being warned that they could be targeted by credit card fraud after a noticeable increase in cloned American Express cards.

SOTHEBY’S set a new auction record for a jewel in Geneva when a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond sold to London jeweller Laurence Graff at SFr40.5m (£25.6m) plus premium.

JEFFERYS Auctions of Lostwithiel, Cornwall, one of the worst hit towns in the recent flooding, are to go ahead with their forthcoming antiques sale as planned.

THE unexpected highlight of a recent sale conducted by Surrey auctioneers Lawrences of Bletchingley was this Anglo-Indian rosewood and ivory inlaid butterfly form jewellery box entered for sale from a local private source.

IT measures over 11ft (3.4m) wide and stands 11ft 6in (3.5m) high, was built in Melbourne and is carved over the entire surface with figure and details emblematic of the foundation and history of the state of Victoria.

A small auction house in Ruislip has shattered the world auction record for a Chinese work of art by taking £43m for a vase consigned to their warehouse auction room as part of a house clearance from a bungalow in Pinner.

THE record-breaking Ruislip yang cai vase, is distinctive for its reticulated double-walled construction, combines various differing decorative elements in a manner typical of Tang Ying's directorship of the Imperial manufactory at Jingdezhen during the early years of the reign of the Qianlong emperor – a period of remarkable technical achievement.

INCREASING revenues at Sotheby’s have given a further indication of the recovering art market. The company’s latest set of results shows a major turnaround for the first nine months of 2010, going from a loss of around $80m for the equivalent period in 2009 to a profit of $64.7m.