News topics

Christie’s spring decorative arts sale will take place on May 22. It features works by some of the current hot favourites in this field, notably the Lalannes and Rembrandt Bugatti.

Quinn’s Auction Galleries is selling a collection of around 1000 pieces of Wedgwood assembled by Adele Barnett, the founder and past president of Washington DC’s Wedgwood Society, and her husband Alan. The collection is to be offered in its Falls Church saleroom on April 14.

Roland Arkell and Noelle McElhatton on what the new ivory law could mean for art and antiques.

ATG selects objects with ivory – from teasets to Art Deco figures – recently sold at auction that may become illegal to sell under the law

The sort of large-scale, widely varied provincial auction which had Cheffins auctioneer Luke Macdonald enthusing “it was like selling used to be 15 years ago” after his March 7-8 sale at Cambridge (ATG No 2335) is rarer than it used to be, but plainly alive and well and prospering.

The new, as yet unnamed law will allow for narrow exemptions to the ban. These comprise:

Two William and Mary side tables, one period and the other catalogued as ‘style’, bringing different results in March.

The art and antiques trade is calling on the government to re-think its planned restrictions on the sale of antique items containing small amounts of elephant ivory.

The general parameters of the government’s ivory ban, on the cards for years, are finally clear. As always with issues of CITES, the devil will be in the detail. Though the trade feels despondent in the face of the ban, a small concession on the currently very narrow 'de minimis' rule will make the ban a lot more manageable.

A remarkable Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes collection which was consigned to auction by their daughter, Frieda Hughes, ran to some 100 lots and formed a separately catalogued part of a recent Knightsbridge sale.

Antiques Trade Gazette can confirm that Chiswick Auctions has proof of good title for a rare group of maps and charts, which the auction house sold last month.

The work of the MacMahon photographic studio of Aberdeen, this extraordinary carbon print was made in 1908 and depicts ‘Giant Cod Specimens…’ bought and cured by A&M Smith, a local fish processing and curing business.

Martin Tinney Gallery celebrates the centenary of Sir Kyffin Williams’ (1918-2006) birth with a selling exhibition of his paintings and works on paper.

A gloriously Welsh view of a jagged, grey slate quarry by JMW Turner (1775-1851) took top honours at Cardiff saleroom Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium).

One of just 100 copies of a scarce, privately published edition of poems called Salvo for Russia, produced in 1942 in aid of the ‘Comforts Fund for Women and Children of Russia’, was offered in a recent West Country sale.

Provenance played a key role in the performance of a small group of pictures formerly owned by one of Australia’s biggest artists, Sidney Nolan (1917-92).