UK

IN the week when dealer John Hobbs was due to meet his former restorer a London court, Dreweatts have announced they will be selling his stock at auction in December.

THIS exceptional Napoleonic French prisoner of war model proved the highlight of the latest sale conducted by Clevedon Salerooms, near Bristol.

LIGHT has been shed on the £52,000 price tag awarded an oak and gilt-bronze coffer on stand at a Sworders Interiors sale.

THE Professional Footballers Association were active at Spink's latest sale, successfully bidding £210,000 to acquire a Great War Victoria Cross group awarded to Second Lieutenant D.S. Bell, Yorkshire Regiment.

HELPED by the boom in Chinese works of art, UK regional salerooms continue to rewrite the record books. Following the £43m vase at Bainbridges of Ruislip, Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis posted two more seven-figure sums for jades.

DEALERS are being warned that they could be targeted by credit card fraud after a noticeable increase in cloned American Express cards.

JEFFERYS Auctions of Lostwithiel, Cornwall, one of the worst hit towns in the recent flooding, are to go ahead with their forthcoming antiques sale as planned.

THE unexpected highlight of a recent sale conducted by Surrey auctioneers Lawrences of Bletchingley was this Anglo-Indian rosewood and ivory inlaid butterfly form jewellery box entered for sale from a local private source.

A small auction house in Ruislip has shattered the world auction record for a Chinese work of art by taking £43m for a vase consigned to their warehouse auction room as part of a house clearance from a bungalow in Pinner.

THE record-breaking Ruislip yang cai vase, is distinctive for its reticulated double-walled construction, combines various differing decorative elements in a manner typical of Tang Ying's directorship of the Imperial manufactory at Jingdezhen during the early years of the reign of the Qianlong emperor – a period of remarkable technical achievement.

The Antiques Trade Gazette Awards for the two outstanding works of art on sale during Asian Art in London were presented at the crowded Gala Party held at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

YOU’D have thought he’d be glad to see the back of it. But duped art dealer David Smith of Neptune Fine Art has bought back the fake Lowry picture he originally purchased for £330,000.

MODELLED as a brickwork kiln, this rare stoneware lampbase was one of only four hand thrown by Guy Sydenham to commemorate the pottery’s centenary in 1973.

THIS George IV rosewood, parcel gilt and gilt metal mounted drum table, in the manner of Morel and Seddon, c.1825 topped Dreweatts latest furniture sale at Donnington Priory with a bid of £40,000.

BONHAMS withdrew 16 lots, with a combined top estimate in excess of £200,000, from last Wednesday’s Bond Street furniture sale after they had good reason to believe the consignor was connected with disgraced ex-BADA dealer John Hobbs.

THIS late 18th/early 19th century Native American ball-head club made a house record when it sold for £33,000 at Charles Ross auctioneers in Woburn, Bedfordshire.

“I LOOK upon [it] with equal amazement, as I do upon St. Paul’s Cathedral; each the work of one man, each the work of an Englishman”.

MAKING £160,000 hammer at Convery Auctions last week, Nobby Stiles' 1966 World Cup winner's medal eclipsed the £140,000 made by team-mate Alan Ball's medal at Christie's South Kensington in May 2005 and set the highest price seen for a '66 medal so far at public auction.

AT £5.26m hammer, Sotheby’s three-day dispersal from the attics, stables and stores of the Derbyshire seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, was the ultimate in a ‘dusting down’ sale.

GENERATING a 25-minute bidding battle at Halls' sale in Shrewsbury on October 20, The Earl of Oxford's Roan or Bloody shouldered Arabian by John Wootton (c.1682-1764) set a new house record when it was finally knocked down to an anonymous UK buyer for £326,000.