Front Page and News

In the 130th anniversary year of the birth of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), a collection of ceramics by the leading figure of the French avant-garde was a sell-out at Bonhams’ Prints and Multiples sale on December 11-12.

An intaglio ring became the second of the ‘lost’ Marlborough jewels to surface at auction in 2019 when it sold for £36,000 (plus 22.5% premium) in Cambridge.

Jeremy Lamond, former director of Halls, will be joining auction house Woolley & Wallis at the end of March 2020 as head of the valuations department and associate director.

Two key early maps of colonial North America were offered for sale at Ramsay Cornish in Edinburgh on December 7.

Two leading BADA members have reported strong sales to close out the year.

In the third multi-million-pound sale this year of a rediscovered Old Master at a provincial French auction house, a late Gothic panel offered at Cortot & Associés of Dijon brought a dramatic competition late last month.

This rare piece of Cork silver of Irish Republican interest sold for £4000 (plus 23% premium) at Sworders latest sale.

After a 17-minute bidding battle, a Chinese blue and white bottle vase with a Daoguang (1820-50) six-character seal mark was hammered down for £270,000 at Gorringe’s in Lewes, East Sussex.

The next staging of the venerable Art & Antiques Fair Olympia will run longer to incorporate two weekends.

Two recently restituted panels by Sienese artist Giovanni di Paolo (c.1399-1482) lifted the latest series of Old Master auctions in London.

An autograph painting by German artist Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-79) was one of the stand-out sales during London Art Week (LAW).

Edward Baldwin, fourth generation and the last of the Baldwin clan to work for coin and medal dealership AH Baldwin & Sons has retired from the firm.

Ashley Gray, dealer in post-war fashion illustration, and clock dealer Howard Walwyn have joined BADA’s ruling council.

A new website founded by two dealers aims to offer a “user-friendly” hub for buying and selling art and antiques.

The UK’s largest antiques fair organiser, International Antiques & Collectors Fairs (IACF), is switching from plastic to recyclable bags which will be handed out at its 40 fairs around the country, writes Noelle McElhatton.

Adam Partridge Auctioneers & Valuers has opened its third saleroom in the north-west and hired new staff to target consignments from the Lancashire and Lake District areas.