Auctions

HALLMARKS on new items made of precious metal may be scrapped under a Government bid to reduce red tape.

ISLAMIC art dominated the London sales agenda last week with the first of the two bi-annual series of auctions devoted to this field in the capital.

THE London Islamic sales week got of to a ‘magic carpet’ start when Morton and Eden held an 81-lot sale devoted to the rarest Islamic coins.

THE mammoth, 875-lot, three-day sale from the collections of the Château de Gourdon staged by Christie's in Paris closed last week closed having raised a hammer total of €35.1m (£31.9m).

AMONG the 30,000 papers released by the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust earlier this month – and now available to the public at the Churchill Archive Centre – is a brief note on antiques fairs.

TWO William Burges windows that surfaced at auction in Salisbury last year have been sold back to the house for which they were originally made.

CHINA’s fourth largest auction house, the Beijing Council International Auction Company, have opened an office in the US with the aim of sourcing material to sell in mainland China.

ONE of the rarer acts of peace-time bravery saw the crew of the airship R33 awarded the Air Force Medal.They included George Ernest Long, whose medals and associated ephemera came up for auction at Lockdales of Ipswich on March 27.

THE 16-lot section devoted to Martin Brothers art pottery at Bonhams' latest Ceramic Design sale provided a number of the notable results.

ON visiting a bungalow just south of Knutsford for a probate valuation, Patrick Cheyne had been dismayed to find nothing of any value in the home itself – but rather better things emerged when he was shown the garage.

A ROW has erupted after another attempt by South American interests to intervene in a tribal art sale in Paris.

THE highlight of the two-day sale conducted by Rosebery's of West Norwood, London on March 15-16 was this unsigned lantern clock, left, consigned 'in the rough' by a private vendor.

THE large sums of money currently paid for the very top works by leading South African artists was seen once again at Bonhams’ latest sale in this category.

ONE of Germany’s official war artists, Roman Zenzinger, who has long remained in the shadows because of his apparent hatred of the Nazis, is now having his works bought to light.

A SET of four George II silver salts by the celebrated Huguenot silversmith Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) sold for a double-estimate £19,000 at Hansons' latest sale at the Mackworth Hotel in Derby.

CHURCHILL impersonator Derek Herbert was in Towcester on March 16 to aid Northamptonshire auctioneer Jonathan Humbert in the sale of a pair of acetate tortoiseshell-effect reading glasses that belonged to Sir Winston.

A NEW auction house based at the Silverstone race track opened for business in February.

AFTER 26 years working with Martel Maides, Norman Wilkinson has established his own firm of Channel Islands Auctions Ltd.

A PICTURE discovered in a Suffolk village has sold for Aus$132,000 (£85,715) in Bonhams' saleroom in Sydney, Australia.

SOUTH Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961 brought with it hefty import taxes on finished luxury goods: a difficult moment for Meccano, for whom the colonies were key markets.