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The Balance of Competences Review, as it is called, aims to provide an analysis of what the UK’s membership of the EU means for the UK national interest.

Cheshire saleroom Frank Marshall of Knutsford set a new house record when this massive 17th or 18th century Sino-Tibetan gilt bronze statue of Guanyin sold for £126,000.

The battleground is Tibet. Invading troops massacre poorly armed peasant soldiers standing bravely in their way, doomed to defeat against a much more powerful, modern opponent.

A printed broadside from 1791 that gained visitors admission to Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, the home of Whig politician Horace Walpole, came up at auction this month and sold at £2000.

Four historic football medals and a gold watch belonging to Heart of Midlothian FC were stolen by a thief who appears to have strolled in through an open door.

Two 15th century painted panels from an oak screen which is one of the finest examples of its kind have been ripped out by thieves at a Devon church.

An appeal to keep in the UK a ring once owned by Jane Austen received an anonymous £100,000 donation just days after it was launched.

A late 20th century acanthus and shell-carved mahogany armchair with dolphin arms sold for £8600 when the contents of the Isle of Man home of watchmaker George Daniels were dispersed by Murrays in Douglas.

Global sales for the first half of 2013 at Sotheby’s totalled $3.14bn (£2.05bn), their latest set of results reveal.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000, this silver-gilt and ivory guilloché enamel desk clock by Carl Fabergé sold for £65,000 at George Kidner in Lymington, Hampshire.

Internet giants Amazon have launched a new platform on their website allowing users to browse and buy art from dealers’ stock.

An English provincial museum has been able to acquire an export-stopped Old Master painting for a knockdown price of £1.61m thanks to the vendor striking a tax deal.

A 1937 oil painting by LS Lowry which he made while on holiday in Scotland will be offered at Bonhams next sale of Modern British and Irish art in London on November 20.

Fair organisers IACF say they may be forced to charge dealers VAT on stalls this year – even as they launch a legal appeal against new Revenue rules demanding the levy.

Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas, are claiming a new auction record for an insert movie poster.

The country house sale of the summer, Bonhams’ on-site, two-day auction of the contents of Trelissick House in Cornwall, including The Copeland China collection of Spode, totalled £2.06m, with every lot sold.

Several of the main French auction firms and French branches of international houses have produced their half-year sales figures.

Herefordshire was judged a little too remote for most Midlands industrialists seeking a rural retreat in the Arts and Crafts idiom.

The Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers (SOFAA) will hold a CPD seminar on Monday, September 2, titled ‘CITES – What’s Going On?’

The British Numismatic Trade Association is in mourning after member Giuseppe Miceli was killed at his home in Northampton.