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Two opposing views on the big questions facing the trade - temporary vs fixed auction locations...

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.

A grand piano commissioned by George IV in 1821 is to return to Brighton Pavilion after it sold for £62,000 at Piano Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in London on April 6.

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.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

The first of the biannual Antique Scientific Instrument Fairs due to be held on Sunday, April 30, at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Bloomsbury, London, has been cancelled owing to unexpected refurbishment work at the hotel, advises Don Edwards, the organiser.

In the continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Lucinda Silcock who runs St Martin’s Antiques Centre in Stamford.

The apparent decline in passing trade is a subject occupying the minds of many shop-owning dealers. But some, such as Brentford’s Hill House, have taken matters into their own hands by staging promotional events to encourage attendance.

This pastel portrait by Maurice Quentin de la Tour is the potential star of the auction taking place at Drouot held by Kalck & Associés.

Lawrences of Crewkerne is co-sponsoring a major new exhibition of works by the Camden Town Group which runs at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton until July 8.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Helen Bowman and Ben Wray of Bowman Fairs launched their first fleamarket earlier this month in the unusual setting of the Skipton Auction Mart in North Yorkshire. In its daily life, the venue is a cattle market.

Pinball machines, Francis Bacon paintbrushes and bear skeletons: is Essex ready for an Out of the Ordinary sale? Sworders managing director Guy Schooling believes so. He has just hired former Bonhams and Christie’s specialist Mark Wilkinson to launch a series of specialist sales at the Stansted Mountfitchet auction house.

MADAM – Having read your story about the reappearance on the market of boatswain whistles that had been pulled from sale in 2008 by the Antique Plate Committee (ATG No 2282), I would like to draw the attention of your readers to the work of this committee and the Hallmarking Act 1973.

“Seeing the vans arrive and all the wonderful things being unloaded and then built into something beautiful on their stands is a real buzz: we can’t wait.” These are the words of Richard Burgoin, director of Arthur Swallow Fairs, when talking about his ‘summer of salvage’.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days.

Waterhouse & Dodd’s upcoming exhibition focuses on the influence of David Bomberg’s (1890-1957) paintings on a wide circle of artists.