Front Page and News

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong autumn series posted benchmark sums in two Chinese works of art categories. Records were broken for both ceramics and carved jade.

“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.

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.

The Mayor of London has confirmed the Met’s Art and Antiques Unit will re-form and will be led by a new head to take office this month.

Martel Maides in St Peter Port, Guernsey will sell a massive collection of Channel Islands silver on October 18, writes Roland Arkell.