UK

Held in Staffordshire this Saturday (July 15) is the annual Old Hall Collectors’ Club Fair.

The latest Old Master sales in London put in a solid performance with the overall total from last week’s auction series running at £115m (including premium) with one day sale still to take place at the time of going to press.

One of the earliest examples of the lucrative tartan tourism, which dates back to George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822 and was turbo-charged by Queen Victoria’s love of the Highlands, were the sycamore boxes and trinkets made in small factories in the little Ayrshire town of Mauchline.

Entered by a leading UK college, two very similar pairs of mid-18th century mahogany lecterns, one illustrated above, became the focus of two major West Country dealers at Tayler & Fletcher’s (20% buyer’s premium) June 22 sale at Bourton-in-the-Water.

Paul Kembery of Kembery Antique Clocks in the West Country is a regular exhibitor at Antiques for Everyone and will stand at the upcoming edition.

The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh’s next pair of exhibitions from July 21-August 28 features works of the birds and the boys.

Sold for £55,000 by Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 14 was a newly discovered and very decorative portolan chart on vellum of the Mediterranean.

Looking at the images from Leyburn’s 1940s Weekend held at Thornborough Hall and in the main town square, you might think you were on a Second World War film or TV set.

Original House, a Cotswolds dealership that specialises in industrial furniture, antique painted French furniture and unique interior objects, has branched out into contemporary art.

A new auction house is to open in London hoping to find a gap in the market for cameras, scientific and medical instruments.

A moment of good old-fashioned saleroom drama emerged at Christie’s antiquities sale on July 5 when an Etruscan bronze mirror, estimated at £10,000-15,000, sold at £390,000 (plus 25/20/12% buyer’s premium). The buyer was a European institution.

“It is something, at the age of 31, to be among the most discussed, most successful, most promising, most admired and most hated British artists.” So wrote the critic Charles Lewis Hind about the war artist CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) in 1920.

Following a near sell-out auction of Lowestoft in March at Keys of Aylsham, another tranche is poised to go under the saleroom’s hammer.

The Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit is to temporarily close due to “unprecedented” demand within the force.

Another work by CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) in the form of an aerial wartime print was offered in Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium) June 27 sale.

A June 16 sale at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne included theological works from the library of Edward Tottenham (1810-53), a cleric whose parishes were in Bath and Wells.

Bonhams Knightsbridge is keen to assert its place in London’s evolving auction scene, managing director Jon Baddeley tells ATG.

Over the last four months, a steady trickle of coaching scenes has been making its way onto the market via John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

A set of four hunting scenes by John Nost Sartorius (1759-1828) is being offered on the art market for the first time at Rountree Tryon Galleries in Mayfair.