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THE busiest week of the year for Old Masters in London provided further signs that the top end of this market is surviving the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

A LENGTHY police investigation has led to the jailing of a retired solicitor, convicted on charges linked to money laundering and efforts to sell a stolen £500,000 painting.

IN his long career, Leslie Weller of Weller King in West Sussex has handled many varied and interesting commissions, but he now finds himself in a unique position, having been asked by a client in the north of England to find a new home for a complete collection of Arts and Crafts furniture.

JOHAN Ten Hoeve, a professional development diploma student on West Dean College’s clocks programme in West Sussex, has made a replica of a Thomas Tompion clock for the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

THE Safergems initiative, aimed at tackling crime committed against the trade and improving links with UK police forces, has now been launched.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.

BRINGING out the bidders in Banbury, this Indian Mughal carved ivory khandjar handle sold for £24,000 at Holloways' latest sale.

THE readjustment taking place at the top end of the contemporary and modern art market was once again in evidence at the latest flagship London auction series.

WHILE £50m was finally raised in February to keep the Duke of Sutherland's Titian painting Diana and Actaeon in the UK, an attempt to raise a further £50m by 2012 for the Duke's Diana and Callisto is already underway.

THE Art Fund have appointed Dr Stephen Deuchar, currently the director of Tate Britain and chairman of the 2009 Turner Prize, as its new director, with effect from January 4 2010.

ALBERT Richard Smith was obsessed from childhood with the idea that he might one day climb Mont Blanc. There were false starts and setbacks, financial and social, but in 1851 he finally got to stand on the peak of his dreams and spent the next few years building a small fortune on the strength of that achievement.

A DOZEN telephone bidders competed for a remarkable cache of primary provenanced Cotswolds School furniture offered by Duke's in Dorchester on June 18.

WELL-KNOWN silver dealer Nicholas Shaw is to leave the trade to become the new head of department at Bonhams. Following more than two decades working as a dealer, he begins work as an auctioneer in September.

HUDDERSFIELD Town may not feature on Sky Sports as much as Manchester United nowadays, but back in the mid-1920s it was the Terriers rather than the Red Devils who were the team to watch.

THE English Ceramic Circle’s annual loan exhibition marks the launch of a major research project to record dated and documentary English pottery and porcelain on their website.

CLIVE Stewart-Lockhart of Dreweatts handed over the chairmanship of the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers to Paul Viney of Woolley & Wallis at the Society’s biennial dinner at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in London last week.

THE important 17th century ivory barometer stolen from the Fairfax House Museum in York has been recovered and is back on display in the museum.

JUST when you thought it was safe to go back into the softening Martinware market, along comes a £26,000 spoon-warmer.

THE campaign to persuade the government to extend business support to the antiques industry has set out in detail exactly what it wants to achieve.

THIS mysterious liveried Austin A40 Dinky van made for the Spanish company Omnisport sold for £6400 on the phone to a British collector at Wallis & Wallis in Lewes, East Sussex on June 8.