International

THIEVES have raided a fair in Belgium and stolen antique jewellery from one of Europe's leading dealers in period jewellery.

THE Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and the Madonna have been recovered by Norwegian police. They were stolen from an Oslo museum two years ago.

Warwick University have validated a new MA in the History and Business of Art and Collecting offered by The Institut d’Études Supérieures des Arts (IESA) in Paris and run in partnership with the Wallace Collection.

The North American trade in antique barometers is under threat from mercury management legislation now operating in a dozen states.

A New York based company is offering what they believe is the world’s first title insurance policy for fine art.

Atlantique City, the self-styled World’s Largest Indoor Antiques and Collectibles Show, has introduced a VIP ticket package for collectors wishing to enter the fair a day early.

Plans to launch a new design, antiques and fine art show at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York have been shelved as the venue returns to military service during the proposed November 16-19 show dates.

“WE will make a name for ourselves and Australia tomorrow.” This was how Captain Shout fired up his band of troops the night before the assault at Gallipoli in the First World War.

The power of one major collection to transform an auction company’s figures was dramatically shown this month when Christie’s France announced sales figures of €122.8m (including premiums) for the first half of 2006.

OF the many publications generated by Captain Cook’s exploits in the Pacific, the most curious is surely A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere...

CINOA, the international confederation of art and antiques dealers, have put bringing on the next generation of the trade at the top of their agenda.

IN what must be one of the least surprising private treaty sales negotiated, The Martin Luther King Jr Collection will go to Morehouse College, Dr King's alma mater in his home city of Atlanta.

A COURT ruling means new Venice auction house San Marco can proceed with their July 8-9 sale - but only under strict conditions.

THE notorious map thief Edward Forbes Smiley III has appeared in court in the US where he admitted to stealing 97 antique maps worth more than $3m.

SEAFAIR, the ambitious project of a floating antiques selling exhibition along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, has delayed its launch from late this year to next June.

Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was one of the most notorious British commanders of the American Revolution. After leading a series of successful operations in both the north and south, he returned home after the war as one of the most famous men in England, sat for a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and began a long-term affair with actress and royal consort Mary Robinson.

Italy has witnessed a sudden, perhaps unexpected, surge in its auction scene with a series of record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s, the most remarkable of which has been the Milan sale of a cycle of Tiepolo canvases on May 30.

THE British Antique Dealers’ Association have called off plans for their much-debated January fair in New York.

Cadogan Tate Fine Art have launched a new weekly transport service from London and Paris to Switzerland to meet the growing demand for discreet fine art transport.

Rare and significant works of art from the Old World will just occasionally surface, unrecorded, in the New.