UK

A lost seam of blue john stone has been rediscovered at one of the only two caverns in Britain where it can be found.

An English provincial museum has been able to acquire an export-stopped Old Master painting for a knockdown price of £1.61m thanks to the vendor striking a tax deal.

A 1937 oil painting by LS Lowry which he made while on holiday in Scotland will be offered at Bonhams next sale of Modern British and Irish art in London on November 20.

The country house sale of the summer, Bonhams’ on-site, two-day auction of the contents of Trelissick House in Cornwall, including The Copeland China collection of Spode, totalled £2.06m, with every lot sold.

Herefordshire was judged a little too remote for most Midlands industrialists seeking a rural retreat in the Arts and Crafts idiom.

A medal given to a remarkable sailor who was given the honour of conveying Napoleon to exile in Elba in 1813 as a reward for his daring exploits in the Royal Navy has made a record price.

As single disciplines go, English clocks are among the London summer fairs’ strongest suits.

While there were plenty of high-end clocks on offer in the London auction rooms and fairs over the summer season, Bonhams were the only house to offer dedicated clock sales.

An antiques and collectors’ street market in one of the UK’s wealthiest cities has expanded from just 15 stalls to 80 in three years and is still growing.

At Dreweatts’ first stand-alone sale of jewellery in London this version of Salvador Dalí’s ‘The Eye Of Time’ (El Ojo Del Tempo) brooch sold for £75,000.

This week sees Sotheby’s staging their annual exhibition of work by the company’s employees, showcasing the artistic talents of over 60 members of staff.

An extraordinary relic of the African slave trade was among the headline lots from a three-day sale held by Lockdales in Martlesham Heath near Ipswich last month.

Business is continuing to improve but the rate of recovery has slowed among London’s fine art dealers, their trade association’s latest survey reveals.

The most stunning price of London’s summer auction season came at Christie’s last week when the competition that emerged on ‘Love among the Ruins’ by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98) was one of the strongest ever seen for a Victorian picture.

An extraordinary cache of 2794 Victorian farthings, all dated 1890, of the same type, and generally all in glorious mint state, have been consigned as lot 680 to Woolley & Wallis’s upcoming Silver and Collectors’ sale in Salisbury.

Mike Collins is to build on his success running Bermondsey Antiques Market by trialling a night antiques market during the summer.

Even in the collecting field of the ‘heroic age’ of Polar exploration where items reflecting incredible stories of human endurance seem to come thick and fast, there are still some that really take the breath away.

On the eve of the major Old Masters sales in the auction houses, Mayfair dealers Colnaghi of 15 Old Bond Street announced the sale of a recently rediscovered ‘Venus’ by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553).

Strong competition for a number of key works gave a major lift to the latest round of Old Master auctions in London.

Auctioneers Frank Marshall of Knutsford and Wright Manley of Beeston, both in Cheshire, have announced that they are to merge.