Front Page and News

Mallams will sell a significant Dutch collection of Japanese swords and armour as part of this week’s auction of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Islamic Art in Cheltenham on October 25-26.

Fresh views are being sought over the legal definition of ‘antique’ as police voice gun crime fears.

A new report into the sale of ivory at UK auctions claims to have found “widespread flouting of the law by many auction houses”.

Clarion Events has welcomed the news that the Olympia exhibition site is to be redeveloped.

The art market’s trade bodies have issued guidance to their members on how to respond to the government’s consultation on ivory, launched on October 6.

Auctioneer association NAVA Propertymark is partnering with Border Force on a so-called amnesty scheme for items made from endangered species.

LAPADA has begun the search for a new chief executive after the resignation of Rebecca Davies, prioritising a candidate’s ability to represent the trade’s interests to government.

Newly-independent Dreweatts will hold a third – and probably final – Mallett stock sale from Donnington Priory next month.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi will more than double the Old Master auction record when it is offered at Christie’s New York next month.

As part of a fifth anniversary auction at Farleigh Court Golf Club on November 1, Catherine Southon is offering the first part of an archive consigned by the family of the commercial artist and cartoonist Francis Wilford-Smith (1927-2009).

The estate of a prominent Jewish art collector has failed to secure the return of a rare Meissen figure that was the subject of a recent export stop.

Glasgow saleroom Mulberry Bank will offer a late 18th century Qing famille rose bottle vase with an estimate of £1.5m-2m in its October 20-21 auction.

Update (July 2019): auctions resumed at Bloomsbury in 2018 following Gurr Johns' purchase of Dreweatts and Bloomsbury in 2017. In February 2019 it expanded the number of sales at its London office at 16-17 Pall Mall. The original story is below.

Anthony Browne, chairman of The British Art Market Federation (BAMF), was due to meet with environment secretary Michael Gove this week (October 10) to discuss the proposed ban on sales of ivory in the UK.

It’s taken more than a year to materialise but at last, the long-awaited consultation on ivory has arrived.

“Only a Rizla paper between them,” is what judge Philip Arnold declared as he announced the winner of the 2017 NAVA Propertymark Novice Auctioneer of the year.

An unusual medals sale has led to an unusual outcome. An application is to be made to export from Canada the Victoria Cross group won by heroic Lieutenant Colonel David Currie after it was bought by a British private collector.

Leading UK artists have donated works for an auction raising funds to establish a national centre for the artist Thomas Gainsborough.

The president of NAVA Propertymark has promised to increase the membership of the auctioneer and valuer association during his tenure and reiterated his quest to get more auctioneers registered.

A portrait of air vice-marshal James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson has been donated to the RAF Club in London after being sold by dealer MacConnal-Mason.