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At Sandown Park Antiques Fair on February 15, Paul Braithwaite on stand HW5 is offering this early 20th century surgeons’ fitted box, made by Mayer & Meltzer, surgical instrument makers in London, for £385.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee will meet next week to consider the request from the People's Republic of China to seek restrictions on Chinese works of art imported to America.

At first glance, this 7ft 6in x 5ft 7in (2.28 x 1.70m) canvas, right, of the Temptation of Adam by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Santerre (1651-1717) might seem to be a fairly standard, if unusually large, depiction of one of the most hackneyed religious themes in Western art.

Appearing at Frank R. Marshall’s (15% buyer’s premium) sale at Knutsford, Cheshire on January 11 and selling at £720, was this 10 x 7in (25 x 18cm) oil-on-canvas, right, by Augustus Edwin Mulready (fl1863-1880 d.1886). Framed, mounted and indistinctly signed, it showed a characteristic subject for the artist, and was estimated at £200-300.

Following the lead of The Fine Art Auction Group, Fernhurst auctioneers John Nicholson are to increase their buyer’s premium from 15 to 17.5 per cent.

Edinburgh dealer John Dixon of Georgian Antiques has joined the LAPADA board of directors.

AFTER almost five years in the heart of London’s West End, one of our top dealers, Kevin Smith of Windsor House Antiques, has decided Mayfair is not for him.

Franz Xavier Messerschmidt (1736-83) was one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of Western art.

If one wanted to view in miniature the issues experienced by the antiques trade as a whole, one could do worse than to look to the golfiana market.

THE first afternoon session of a January 20-21 antiques sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne presented more than 400 lots of books, amongst them a good collection of private press books featuring the wood-engraved illustrations of David Jones.

The final Dix Noonan Webb (15% buyer’s premium) 2004 sale in London, on December 14, was a massive 1610-lot affair with a diversity of offerings. The total hammer take was £282,905.

TO the non-specialist, a cracked and chipped blue and white 18th century delft plate might have seemed reasonably estimated at £60-100 in the January 5 sale held by Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium).

The £1.7m price tag needed to keep the Macclesfield Psalter in the UK has been found.

The student section of the British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association will hold their annual conference at Oxford and Cherwell College, Oxpens Road, Oxford on March 14.

Thomson Roddick & Medcalf. Buyer’s premium: 15 per centTWO large private consignments accounted for half the lots at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s Edinburgh sale and had the predictable effect of pulling in bidders from south of the Border.

PICTURES which belong to a very specific collecting area are frequently in much greater demand than those of comparable quality that lack esoteric appeal.

For the third year running, prices for standard pieces of antique furniture have failed to keep pace with the property market, according the Antique Collectors’ Club’s annual index.

THE appearance of a significant Lenkiewicz forgery on the market has prompted the foundation dedicated to the artist to set up an authentication service.

Charterhouse, Sherborne, December 10, Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent TWO fine timepieces led this Dorset sale. Top price by a long way was the £21,000 bid for an unusual brass skeleton clock designed for a Victorian railway industrialist.

Christie's King Street, 20 January, Buyer's Premium: 20/12%.The most expensive piece from the 26 lots offered from Endsleigh, the Devon cottage designed for the 6th Duke of Bedford was this 6ft (1.8m) wide carved oak side table designed c.1801-14 by Jeffry Wyatt, the architect responsible for the main decorative scheme at Endsleigh, and made by local cabinetmaker John Williams of Exeter.