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WHAT should the art world do when the going gets tough? Many in the trade sit back and whine. Others go into battle. Those who do get up from their derrières and practise a little innovation and lots of enthusiasm often do well in the most difficult of periods.

IN Antiques Trade Gazette No 1276, February 22, 1997, I reviewed a fascinating but somewhat disconcerting exhibition at Archeus Fine Art in London of drawings by Eric Hebborn (1934-1996), who has been described as the maker of the finest art fakes of the 20th century. The show offered rather convincing ‘Old Master’ drawings after the likes of Raphael, Rembrandt and Watteau, which were selling at prices up to £2500.

THIS year marks the 200th birthday of the Royal Watercolour Society and many past members, such as William Callow (1812-1908), have been masters in portraying the detail and differing surface textures of building.

FEATURING a fine portrait initial of Henry VIII and other devices associated with the Tudor monarchs, a vellum document of November 24, 1537, in which the Priory of Combewell [near Goudhurst in Kent] is granted by the king to Thomas Culpeper, was sold for £4400 in an August 26 sale of autographs, historical documents and ephemera held by Mullock Madeley of Ludlow.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE dealer Mike Golding, whose business Huntington Antiques in Stow on the Wold is known for early furniture, works of art and tapestries, has just sent out his latest catalogue of recent acquisitions, which will comprise his exhibition next month as part of the Cotswold Antique Dealers Association’s annual series of autumn selling shows.

SWAPPING the saleroom for the soccer pitch, dealers and auctioneers came face to face for their annual football match in aid of Breast Cancer Haven on Friday, September 3.

Two very different 19th century bedspreads at Hampton & Littlewood's (15% buyer's premium) July 28 sale underlined Christopher Hampton’s belief that the importance of collectables today cannot be over-emphasised.

ONE of 11, generally very fine, British drinking glasses consigned from ‘a Highland lady’ to The Scottish Sale held by Bonhams (17.5% buyer's premium) in Edinburgh on August 18-20, was this 3 1/4in (8cm) high polychromed enamel firing glass, right, probably decorated c.1765 by member of the Beilby family of Newcastle.

WITH only eight of the 300 lots bringing four-figure sums, the Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on August 25 was a fairly sleepy summer affair by usual standards at Oxford, but there were pieces of interest throughout for budget-conscious bidders.

ISAAC ROSENBERG had produced just two small pamphlet collections of verse and a play before he was killed in action on April Fool’s Day, 1918, but his reputation is now established as one of the finer war poets.

THE Badminton Cabinet, the magnificent 18th century ebony, ormolu and pietra dura cabinet made at the Grand Ducal workshops in Florence and sold by Christie for a record £7.8m in 1990 is to come back on the market again in December with the same auction house.

ALTHOUGH the 616-lot sale held by Thomson, Roddick & Medcalf (15% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh took place back on June 23, the sale highlight merits recording. This was the finely worked silver gilt globe cup, right, probably made in Germany.

THE recently published, enlarged and revised second edition of Peter McEwan’s indispensable Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture describes the Perthshire-born landscape painter Joseph Henderson (1832-1908) as “one of Scotland’s half-forgotten painters who deserves better recognition than he has hitherto received”.

WHAT is billed as the first ever selling exhibition of early Armenian art to be held in a commercial gallery will be mounted by Sam Fogg at 15d Clifford Street, London W1, from September 22 to October 15.

PEAK District dealers Peter and Sonia Allerston also provide an interior design service from their premises at Elmton, Derbyshire. Now they have combined the two areas to take their own show on the road to drum up business.

THE backbone of Bonhams’ September 3 car sale at Goodwood Motor Circuit in Sussex was the little-known but highly impressive collection of the late George Milligen.

WHILE Brian Haughton celebrates the botanical beauties of fine Chelsea, an altogether more prosaic, but nonetheless interesting, ceramic encounter is under scrutiny in Kensington Church Street.

REGULAR readers of Scott Reyburn’s Art Market will be only too aware that many equestrian paintings by Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959) have in recent years shown significant increases in value. As he reported as recently as Antiques Trade Gazette No 1648, July 17, Munnings’ oil sketch Newmarket Cheveley was the only work to dramatically exceed its estimate in Sotheby’s Important British Picture sale on July 1.

IT IS ten years since well-known dealer Richard Gardner moved into Petworth, West Sussex. Today, even in a town known internationally as one of the most notable concentrations of antiques trading in the South of England, Mr Gardner can certainly be said to have made his mark.

SOME provincial auctioneers and London’s major houses batten down their hatches during the traditionally dead month of August, but for Scarborough Perry (15% buyer's premium) it was business as usual for their August 12-13 sale.