News

BONHAMS & BROOKS confirmed on Friday evening that they are to merge with Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, ending a week of speculation that this move was imminent.

GERMANY: Lempertz’ Old Masters in Cologne on May 19 produced a hammer total of DM6.7m (£2.1m) and a surprise price of DM192,000 (£60,000), paid by the Italian trade against an estimate of just DM4000, for a Bildnis eines Singers, a portrait of a singer with crimson turban and coat, his left forefinger resting on a musical score, 3ft 1in x 2ft 6in (93 x 77cm).

THE Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts has acquired one of the world’s most important collections of English Silver, that of Alan and Simone Hartman.

UK: A SOLICITOR’S clerk has been banned from his profession after a tribunal heard how he arranged the theft of valuable works of art to order.

UK: A TEMPORARY export ban on an important reliquary from the Wernher Collection has allowed the V&A to acquire it with backing from the Lottery and the National Arts Collection Fund.

UK: THE biannual sale of ceramics, glass, Oriental wares and decorative arts at Phillips’ Midlands operation saw keen enough trade and private bidding to produce a £138,000 sale total with a very respectable 82 per cent sold by lot.

The two letters IF are the initials of this mug’s owner, but IF could equally be read as an expression of desire, of conditional optimism, when you realise why the mug was made.