Front Page and News

By the time the Baltars ceramics painting workshop was established in 1925 the country where it was founded – Latvia – had been accepted by the international community as independent for just four years.

A Victorian cased pair of the extinct New Zealand huia sold for £220,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) in Tennants’ Natural History and Taxidermy sale.

A rediscovered 17th century painting of Moses by Italian Baroque artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591– 1666), known as il Guercino, is being offered at Moretti Fine Art of Paris in its newly opened gallery.

An art and antiques fair proposed to launch at NEAC Stoneleigh this December has changed its dates and venue and will now take place at Birmingham’s NEC.

In what may have felt like a flashback to the past, when bidders actually attended day sales in person, the Elveden Hall auction held by Sworders was deemed a runaway success.

A group of engravings depicting 17th and 18th century Neapolitan food festivals is being offered by a London dealer.

A third stolen Martinware bird has been recovered more than 15 years after it was taken in west London.

A single-owner sale from the late Norfolk glass collector and dealer Brian Watson is coming to Bishop & Miller on September 27.

The art ecosystem and the knowledge, expertise and confidence in its integrity are the key attributes of the UK’s strong art market, a conference heard last week.

Sensational was the only word for it.

An 18th century copy of Tikkunei Shabbat (an amalgam of Hebrew prayers and devotions for the Sabbath) sold for £57,000 to an international phone bidder at Hansons on September 5.

The PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) will celebrate its 50th anniversary in style next year with two new fairs: in Bath and Tunbridge Wells.

The artist and Royal Academy founder Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) was also a major collector, especially in the field of Old Master works on paper.

A group of nine Empire period Sèvres porcelain plates were the object of keen interest when they came up for sale at Lockdales in Ipswich on August 31.

Demands are growing in the antiquities trade for the British Museum to publish a list of objects stolen in an alleged theft from its collection by a member of staff.

A Regency Coade stone torchère has been acquired by The Fitzwilliam Museum from West Midlands dealership Thomas Coulborn & Sons.

A group of four lots being sold by the family of the former foreign editor of The Daily Mail includes items relating to the first direct flight across the Atlantic as well as Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird 1933 land speed record.

Richard Beale, director of the London auction house Roma Numismatics, has pleaded guilty to a series of charges in connection with unlawful sales of ancient coins.