North America

In 1862, the English missionary Father William Duncan brought around 70 Tsimshian Christian converts to an abandoned Native village and established a model Church of England mission settlement at Metlakatla in Northern British Columbia.

Sotheby’s New York was closed in the afternoon of October 11 in the wake of the plane crash that killed the two people onboard, injured 21 and briefly raised fears of another terrorist attack on the city.

CHRISTIE’S are hoping to generate up to $140m for the four remaining works by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that were part of the high-profile Bloch-Bauer restitution case.

ALMOST one in five antiques dealers have not returned a year on from Hurricane Katrina, but there are tales of better fortunes for some.

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

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

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

CHRISTIE’S May 17 sale of Partridge stock in New York went according to plan, with a hammer total of $12.5m (£6.65m).

Hedge funds continue to stake a claim on big-ticket names

Pablo Picasso has become the ultimate luxury brand. On May 3 at Sotheby’s New York Picasso’s rare and iconic 1941 portrait, Dora Maar au chat, became the world’s second most expensive painting when it sold for $85m (£48.3m) to a mystery buyer in the room, widely presumed to be representing a Russian oligarch.

A POWERFUL group of top-end American dealers have voiced opposition to the British Antique Dealers’ Association’s decision to stage a 50-stand fair at Sotheby’s New York early next year.

The enormous potential of the market for contemporary Chinese art was dramatically underlined by almost frenzied scenes at Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) eagerly awaited March 31 Contemporary Art Asia sale in New York.