Front Page and News

English Civil War group The John Hampden Society has bought a lock of hair thought to be from the head of its eponymous patron.

Online sales of art, antiques and collectables reached $4.82bn in 2019, a rise of 4% from the previous year, and digital demand is set to increase further in the years ahead.

A 19th century doll’s house sold for £8500 at North Yorkshire saleroom Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) – but its real appeal came from what was inside.

Providing a major boost to Bonhams’ first sale in London with room bidding since the lockdown, a portrait of the writer EM Forster by Roger Fry (1866-1934) set an auction record both for the artist and any Bloomsbury Group picture.

International Antiques and Collectors Fairs (IACF) kicked off its return to business with its first event after lockdown.

Jewellery auction house Elmwood’s has opened a new office in London and hired two new staff as business begins to return to normal after the lockdown.

Sotheby’s held the first of this summer’s ‘super sales’ last week as it combined a series of three Modern and Contemporary art auctions into a marathon four-and-a-half hour live-streamed event.

Estimated at just £60-80, a rare Ericsson telephone sold for £10,500 (plus 17% buyer’s premium) at Wessex Auction Rooms in Chippenham.

More than 400 online enquiries came through the 'London Art Week' (LAW) website during its preview day last Thursday as it kicked off a new virtual format.

Pub quiz time: who was the youngest player to appear in a World Cup, the youngest to score in a League Cup Final and FA Cup Final, made his debut for Manchester United at 16 and was their youngest captain at the age of 20?

The easing of lockdown rules across the UK and Ireland will help the art and antiques sector return to some normality during the summer months.

Art specialist Buffy Parker has launched Parker Fine Art Auctions in Surrey and will hold his first sale in September.

The latest sale of Asian Works of Art held online by Skinner of Marlborough, Massachusetts included this blue and white bottle vase with a Yongzheng (1722-36) mark.

Nagel in Stuttgart, which has been trading since 1922, has been so severely affected by the coronavirus lockdown that it has begun an insolvency process,.

The former boss of Online Galleries and 1stdibs International plans a ‘private members club’ marketplace for antiques dealers.

The medium of jewellery provided perhaps the greatest canvas for the new international style that flowed through the decorative arts around the turn of the 20th century.

Christie’s claimed a new record for Vietnamese ceramics when a large 15th century blue and white storage jar sold for a surprise €380,000 (£339,300) as part of the Art d'Asie sale in Paris.

The top lot of the latest Christie’s Classic Week was this Corinthian helmet from c.525-475 BC which sold for $700,000 (£566,230) against an estimate of $300,000-500,000.