Industry data

Despite some welcome exceptions, 2015 proved a unspectacular year for Britain and Ireland’s regional fine art auctioneers with one in three salerooms experiencing a fall in sales.

Leeds University launch two resources for research and study into the British art and antiques market this week.

After lengthy and complex negotiations, the paper archive of the Staffordshire pottery firm of Minton’s has been saved for the nation.

COMMENT: The TEFAF Report shows that the art market has fully recovered since the 2008 financial crash, but still faces a number of challenges, such as late or non-payment.

Post-War and Contemporary art accounts for almost half of total spend at auction

The Antique Collectors’ Club’s Annual Furniture Index (AFI) registered its seventh successive fall in 2014. However, only two categories depreciated substantially.

A new report on the British art market shows the United States and China pulling away from the UK – the world’s third biggest player – as global business expands.

Sotheby’s figures for the first half of 2014 saw a significant increase in auction totals help them to a 20% rise in operating income compared to the equivalent period last year.

Christie’s reported auction sales for the first half of 2014 of $3.6bn (£2.2bn), a 23% rise on the same period last year. Sotheby’s took $3.12bn (£1.9bn), a 22% increase.

There was no slowing down in the Contemporary art market as the latest sales in New York posted a record for any auction series.

Reputation and brand building is likely to become the single most important component to success in selling art and antiques online, a market now worth $1.57bn.

A sharp decline in the movement of fine art between the UK and its main trading partners in the US and Switzerland is the starkest feature of the latest set of import and export figures.

Following last week’s announcement of their global sales totals, Bonhams have now released figures for their 2013 revenues and profits as well.

New York has firmly reinforced its status as the capital of the global art market with a 25% growth in the value of US sales last year.

Bonhams have released their sales figures for 2013, with the company claiming third place in the global hierarchy after Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

There are very few positives to take from the latest findings of The Antique Collectors’ Club’s Annual Furniture Index (AFI). For reasons of fashion and function, the English antique furniture market remains in a parlous state and no category from early oak to Georgian mahogany held firm.

Optimism permeated the UK’s regional auction market across much of the last year.

A decade of rising gold prices came to an end as 2013 turned into 2014 with a 28% fall over the past 12 months.

Showing up at TEFAF Maastricht in the southern Netherlands with a stand cobbled together from stale, lacklustre stock is tantamount to professional suicide, the sort of nightmare that has dealers waking up in a cold sweat.

Green shoots in the market for the most iconic of all English furniture was among the more encouraging findings of the Antique Furniture Price Index in 2012.