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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.

SOTHEBY’S New York hold the W. Graham Arader sale on June 19, offering 204 lots from the well-known American prints and maps specialist.

ALTHOUGH this summer’s Russian art auctions in London failed to bring the gold rush of previous years, there was some relief in the salerooms that demand did not sink even further.

Toovey’s have announced an increase in their buyer’s premium to 22.5% plus VAT. They cite rising running costs as the chief cause for the increase, which comes into effect on June 16-19.

WHEN John Harrison set about solving the problem of how to measure longitude, the name Association would have held a special resonance for him.

WHEN a market softens, it is often best to return to first principles – the core values of condition, market freshness and pricing that can be overlooked when an area of collecting really ‘takes off’.

A DISPUTE between Lord Lloyd Webber and the HM Revenue and Customs over the purchase, with the aid of taxpayers' money, of J.W. Waterhouse's St Cecilia by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation, has been settled out of court.

CHRISTIE’S have launched legal action against US Internet entrepreneur Halsey Minor. Minor took Christie’s to court last December, accusing the auction house of fraud and a number of other torts after pictures he consigned to Christie’s dealership Haunch of Venison in May 2008 were not returned “in a timely fashion” when they failed to sell.

BRITISH Art Market Federation chairman Anthony Browne is fighting a rearguard action against the unexpected news that the Export Licensing Unit is to move to Birmingham.

A WELL-ORGANISED gang targeted the premises of Cirencester auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent on May 28, taking antiques with a combined value of between £20,000-40,000.

A NEW website has been launched which aims to do for antique silver what abebooks.com has done for the antiquarian and secondhand book trade.

EBAY UK have launched a new anti-counterfeit campaign and want to work closely with the antiques industry to beat the fakers.

COLOGNE auctioneers Van Ham offered this oil painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), hidden from public view for over 70 years, at their latest sale.

TURN the leaves of ‘A sketchbook belonging to Lady Julia Conyers...’ and you will find some 80 drawings and watercolours by Lady Julia and her society friends that are for the most part unexceptional and predictable.

EBAY have now added a London High Court victory against a claim from luxury brand L’Oréal to the one they gained in France last month.

PICTURED here is a medal commemorating the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon in 1739. It was among the items stolen from a country house museum in south Derbyshire on the afternoon of May 20.