UK

Chiswick Auctions has taken on a trio of books specialists from Bloomsbury Auctions as the west London saleroom kicks off 2018 with a new sales programme.

Familiarity with the works on paper market means getting to grips with the technical processes behind drawing, painting and printing and learning the requisite vocabulary.

Rising rents and business rates in central London have forced Rountree Tryon Galleries to downsize.

Sworders is to sell the primary contents of North Mymms Park, Hertfordshire – including a collection of European tapestries that have been at the property for over a century.

For the Fine Art Society in Edinburgh, the year kicks off with an exhibition of 20th century printmaking.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ antiques shops and centres, ATG talks to Brian Cheyne of Collecting the World.

A precedent-setting legal dispute over a $10m (£7.2m) fee relating to the 2014 sale of a $210m Paul Gauguin painting has been won by auctioneer turned art adviser Simon de Pury.

An extensive collection with Astor family provenance offered at auction was billed as best of its type in more than 20 years.

Robin Yacoubian runs the family business, Gallery Yacou, with his father Ezekiel. The firm has been in the family for more than four generations and specialises in antique, decorative and contemporary carpets. This year, the gallery moved from Fulham Road to its current location in north London.

MADAM – Here’s an insight into my week. Tuesday: I receive my copy of Antiques Trade Gazette. I read it fairly thoroughly, often starting with Bid Barometer. Then with trepidation I move onto Letters, this week almost entirely devoted to ivory.

Paintings by lesser-known Pre-Raphaelites took the honours at the latest Victorian art sales held at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9%) and Christie’s (25/20/12.5%).

Fair organiser expands in the north by taking over vacant Harrogate showground slot.

This month’s Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative Antiques & Fine Art Fair is the second fair of the year to take place in the Yorkshire town.

A specialist fair in London that was put together at top speed in under two weeks, with Christmas in the middle, has been judged a resounding success by the organiser Two C’s Fairs.

As Springfield Fairs, Polly and Peter Trapmore-Shaw’s upcoming Spalding Antique and Collectors’ Fair in the Lincolnshire town famous for its flower bulbs, is at the Springfield Event Centre on Sunday, February 4.

The textiles archive at the Sunny Bank Mills at Farsley, near Leeds in West Yorkshire, which was founded in 1829, is a fascinating piece of textiles history.

Two of the first sales of 2018 suggest that toasts to the future can be drunk from half-full, rather than half-empty, Georgian rummers.

Carroll rubbed shoulders with Wilde, Rackham, Tolkien and many other children’s works in recent auctions.