Front Page and News

Trade bodies line up to make the case for art and antiques sector

The Bovey Pottery Company, closed in 1957, would have passed into collecting history without incident had it not been for the ‘Our Gang’ collection of figures.

Nicholas Mellors Auctioneers in Newark has closed but Newark Antiques will continue to trade.

Estimated at £500-800, a small Old Master painting of Christ wearing the crown of thorns drew spectacular competition at Adam’s of Dublin on April 9. It came from an institution in the Irish capital which the saleroom said was “doing some spring cleaning”. It was given the pick of around 100 paintings.

A new street event in Church Street in London’s Lisson Grove is to take place in September.

Almost exactly a year after setting an auction record for modern British painter Sir Cedric Morris (1889-1982), the Henry Adams saleroom has done it again.

Westminster City Council has put its weight behind the art and antiques dealers of London’s Church Street with a series of initiatives designed to encourage growth of the sector.

A coalition of California auction houses fighting to reword a new law governing the sale of autographed collectables has cleared its first legal hurdle.

Auctioneers and vendors are quickly discovering that Europe’s country houses, furnished with the routine period objects that no longer generate great excitement, can occasionally yield valuable souvenirs of a colonial past.

Former Bonhams and Christie’s specialist Mark Wilkinson is to join Sworders to launch new specialist sales at the Essex auction house. Wilkinson spent over 30 years at Christie’s and led its ‘interiors’ auctions at South Kensington.

Christie’s is to open a new Los Angeles premises this month in Beverly Hills to bolster its presence on the west coast of the US.

The art and antiques trade is taking its Brexit concerns directly to government with the submission of a series of policy documents asking that art market interests are recognised.

A former chairman of Christie’s South Kensington has written an open letter to owner François Pinault warning that his plans for the company could “gravely harm Christie’s in London”

An audacious robbery in Amsterdam has left a dealer without insurance cover for the theft of more than 250 Asian works of art.

A previously unknown complete set of Goya’s La Tauromaquia led Sotheby’s sale of Prints & Multiples in London on April 4.

Christie’s is to appeal last month’s French court ruling that declared Droit de Suite is a charge on the vendor rather than the buyer.

Surrey auction firm Fryer & Brown Auctioneers is set to be struck off the UK company register after it ceased trading in January.

A Petworth dealer has been the victim of a £2200 ‘card not present’ debit card fraud.

A large, late work by JMW Turner appears at Sotheby’s on July 5 with an estimate of £15-25m.

A judge has ruled against a London gallery over the seizure by UK Border Force of a Chinese silver tea set containing a tiny quantity of elephant ivory.