Front Page and News

Black Rock Galleries in Greenwich, Connecticut received bids up to $388,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) for a bronze it believes is Buste de Saint Jean-Baptiste, a previously lost lifetime cast by Rodin.

The Horlicks collection of Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson furniture was sold at Sworders’ auction for £236,000.

This medal documents a little-known moment in the history of the English Civil War. In 1648, following a revolt in the Parliamentary fleet, a number of ships went to Helvoetsluys in the western Netherlands and were organised as a Royalist squadron by Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619-82).

The next Antique Arms Fair at Olympia in west London will incorporate another key London collecting event, the long-running Park Lane Arms Fair.

The Kensington Antiques Fair was cancelled at the eleventh hour just before it was due to open at Kensington Town Hall.

Small dealers have expressed their dismay at news that Chancellor Philip Hammond is considering a plan to bring many more businesses into the VAT system by reducing the threshold for paying.

A classical marble bust took an unexpected £129,000 at Sheffield Auction Gallery on September 21.

Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury will sell an important oil by Chinese contemporary artist Yang Fei Yun (b.1954) next month. It comes for sale from the charity established by Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick (1942-2007).

Dealer body BADA have called for a tougher stance in the run-up to wildlife conference.

Landmark prices were paid for rare large-denomination English coins when Mayfair coin dealership Sovereign Rarities conducted its first auction on September 25.

In the long history of beer, the can is a relative newcomer. The first canned beer came with the end of Prohibition in the US – the shiny new light-weight packaging used by Krueger’s in Richmond, Virgina, to market a pasteurised beverage from January 1935.

Collectors and sellers of antique ivory are being told that the ivory ban is unlikely to become law before spring 2019, a longer lead-time than originally thought.

Dealers at Frieze Masters reported a strong start to the London event with a number of six- and seven-figure sales recorded in the fair’s first days.

Two leading regional auction houses – Lyon & Turnbull and Dreweatts – are trying new format sales this autumn in the hope of increasing demand for traditional European art and antiques. Both are creating room sets for viewing works.

Three proposals for a European Union law on the import of cultural goods have been tabled for ‘trilogue’ talks in November.

Heritage Auctions in Texas sold this Broadwood amboyna and giltwood grand piano for $22,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at a recent auction. Evidently it had been on quite a journey.

One of the earliest surviving incandescent light bulbs, made by the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) in the 1870s, sold for £7500 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Bonhams’ sale titled Instruments of Science and Technology.

The art and antiques trade celebrated a victory in the US after the Trump administration dropped plans for an import tax of 25% on art and antiques of Chinese origin.