Art and antiques news from 2010

CHARLES Hampshire of Peter Francis auctioneers in Carmarthen has won the NAVA National Auctioneer of the Year Award.

WHILE the sale of artworks and ephemera formerly owned by the Lehman Brothers bank had a strange attraction for souvenir hunters and contemporary art dealers, it was, perhaps more surprisingly, also of interest for enthusiasts of marine art.

WHEN Barnes Thomas, director of Barnes Thomas County Auctioneers of Penzance, was called to the home of a retired fisherman in the town to value a painting, he found a cache of works by the original St Ives naive painter, Alfred Wallis (1855-1942).

THREE masked raiders who stole £30,000 of antiques from a Petworth gallery before leading police on a chase across the home counties, have been jailed.

A RARE East Anglian Iron Age gold torc dating from c.150-50BC, thought to have been discovered in the Diss area of Norfolk around 1942, sold for £44,000 (plus premium) in Spink's latest sale of coins and medals.

THE fake Lowry at the centre of a £1m art fraud that landed Maurice “Lord Windsor” Taylor in jail is heading to auction to help pay his victims compensation. Once sold for £330,000, it is now valued at just £5,000-10,000.

THE Ashley-Russell case will be the focus of the next Fakes and Forgeries seminar at Goldsmiths' Hall in London on November 22.

SPORT is never far from controversy these days. So it was no surprise when the news that George Best’s and Nobby Stiles’s most valued medals and trophies were to be sold that there was an outcry in certain sections of the media.

BLOOMSBURY Auctions are to reduce their buyer’s premium when offering the Richard Harris collection in two forthcoming sales.

SOTHEBY’S have launched a retail and online wine business based in New York.

PHILLIPS de Pury will open a second auction and exhibition gallery in New York, at 450 Park Avenue.

WHEN auctioneer Mark Oliver climbed down off the rostrum after completing a 650-lot marathon double sale of British art and collectors’ pottery, Bonhams had netted just shy of £720,000.

Bonhams’ latest prints sale in London included a relatively large selection of Modern British works from the likes of John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore.

DORCHESTER auctioneers Duke’s sale of the contents of Melplash Court, near Bridport, became one of the highest grossing sales ever conducted by a provincial auctioneer thanks to the phenomenal strength of the Chinese market.

CHRISTIE’S have announced some major management changes at senior level with the promotion of Edward Dolman from CEO to chairman of Christie’s International plc and the appointment of Steven Pleshette Murphy to succeed him as the new CEO.

A RARE group of four hand-coloured lithographs of Sydney from c.1826 by travel artist Augustus Earle (1793-1838) saw interest from both hemispheres of the globe emerge at Bonhams' (20% buyer's premium) in Oxford on September 8.

THE government are to refuse nearly all future applications for the export of old rhinoceros horn sold in the UK.

THIS exquisite example of Roman metalwork, a late 1st to mid 3rd century bronze parade helmet with its haunting face mask, represented the find of a lifetime for a Cumbrian metal detectorist when it was unearthed in May of this year.

LA Minotauromachie from 1935 is arguably the masterpiece of the Pablo Picasso's 2000 or so different printed works.

THE Hotel Drouot, the communal auction facility used by most Paris auctioneers, faces an even bigger overhaul than expected after the French Justice Minister’s scathing report about its culture and working practices.