Organisations

SHERLOCK Holmes was celebrated, among other things, for his research and monographs on cigar ash. Now English Heritage are to spend £88,000 on a similar exercise – but this time into dust.

AFTER more than two decades, the January LAPADA fair at Birmingham’s NEC has come to an end.

THE National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers hold their Spring meeting at the Southampton Institute this Friday, May 9.

Forecasts revised upwards for the rest of the year: eBay’s net profits for the first quarter of 2003 more than doubled last year’s figure, breaking the $100m barrier for the first time. With a turnover of $476.5m for the period, the firm generated $104.2m profit, compared with a turnover of $245.1m and profits of just under $50m for the first quarter of 2002.

CHANCELLOR Gordon Brown’s Budget plans to help achieve one of the three main aims of the National Art Collections Fund (the Art Fund) campaign to improve art donation. Concern that art owners do not have enough incentive to bequeath works to the nation has led the Chancellor to announce that he will look at introducing a policy of tax relief on such donations – until now, such relief has only been available on donations of cash or shares.

EARLY needlework specialist Maureen Morris has been appointed to the Board of LAPADA. She joined the country’s largest dealers’ association in 1991 and is already a member of the advisory board of the Olympia Fine Art and Antique Fairs.

A NEW guide to exporting cultural goods, to be distributed with next week’s Antiques Trade Gazette, aims to cut through red tape for the trade.

THE Antiques Trade Gazette has been named as Special Interest Newspaper of the Year in the 2003 Newspaper Awards.

THE National Art Collections Fund (the Art Fund) are marking their centenary by calling for the whole process of saving art for the nation to be overhauled.

NOTTINGHAM is set to get its own version of the Kent Act, forcing antiques dealers and other traders to register if they want to do business in the city.

This year Antiques Trade Gazette will celebrate the British antiques industry with the publication of a high quality magazine titled The Great British Summer. To be published in May, this compendium of art and antiques attractions will embrace many aspects of the trade across Britain in the busy summer months with one simple objective: stimulating the antiques business (auctions, fairs, shops and services) across the United Kingdom.

The National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund), has offered a £400,000 grant to the National Gallery in their bid to secure Raphael’s The Madonna of the Pinks for the collection. The painting, sold by the Duke of Northumberland to the Getty Museum in California, is subject to a temporary export bar of one month, with a potential further six months extension, to give the National Gallery the chance to raise the £29.5m needed to keep it in the country.

IN the wake of recent reports on credit card fraud emanating from Indonesia, dealer association LAPADA are advising members on how best to protect themselves.

The future of the Red House, the seminal Arts and Crafts building designed for William Morris by architect Philip Webb in 1859, was secured by the National Trust last month.

One of London’s best known department stores, Peter Jones of Sloane Square, has been accepted as a member of LAPADA. It is not well known that the SW1 store includes a flourishing antiques department and has done for more than 90 years.

A £5600 National Art Collections Fund grant has enabled the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments at Oxford University to keep a handsome Baroque trumpet with a legend attached.

DAVID Duggleby of Scarborough and Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh have joined the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers. The announcement of their membership comes as SOFAA also open their doors to valuers for the first time and change the society’s name to the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers.

LAPADA’S 2002 membership survey shows that dealers seem to be heading back to the public arena rather than working from home or conducting business by appointment only.

THE Society of Fine Art Auctioneers have agreed to accredit the Southampton Institute’s BA (Hons) Fine Arts Valuation degree as an approved entry route to professional qualification within the Society.

FOR a decade LAPADA, our largest antiques association, has held its winter showcase event at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham and indeed the Birmingham LAPADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair has become the favourite out-of-London fair for a good many exhibitors.