UK

On November 28 Spink officially opened the new showroom at their existing headquarters at 69 Southampton Row.

THIS year’s ATG-sponsored Charity Football Match between the Dealers and Auctioneers has raised more than £10,000 for Breast Cancer Haven.

The 21st century equivalent of an unknown masterpiece brought in to the front counter of a saleroom must be the treasure that surfaces on an auctioneer’s computer via a routine email.

Christie’s are to increase the number of European salerooms offering the Christie’s Live online bidding feature.

THE Christmas lights are now on in Camden Passage, but for some dealers this will be their last festive period in the London antiques thoroughfare.

The highlight of this year’s Old Master picture series in London was a pair of Roman vedute by Bernardo Bellotto (Venice 1721-1780 Warsaw).

ROBERT Dodd is the director and auctioneer at Greenwich Auctions Partnership, in the Old Woolwich Road, just a cough away from the River Thames.

Initially catalogued as “an Eastern walnut three-tier table, brass mounted and fitted three flaps, 2ft (64cm) wide when open” and estimated at just £150-200, the appraisal of this stylish table seen at Simon Chorley of Southam, near Cheltenham, Gloucester on November 30 was radically upgraded when it was identified as the work of Aesthetic architect and designer Edward William Godwin (1833-1886).

On November 27, the Guild of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors took another important step in its development with the installation of the Master, Wardens and Court of Assistants. The Guild represents all those with a commercial interest in the world of historic arts as well as collectors and curators. It was registered by the City of London in September.

ON December 28, 1792 Anglo-Irish statesman, orator and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-97) enacted the melodrama in Parliament that became known as the Dagger Scene.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE police are planning to return £24,000 worth of antiques at the Newark fair this Friday to dealers who accepted cheques from a fraudster.

ANITA Bott of Vintage Fashion Fairs is adding another venue to her bimonthly vintage fashion fairs at Battersea Arts Centre, events now firmly on the fashionistas circuit.

Son of Sir James Thornhill, brother-in-law to William Hogarth and serjeant painter to the King, John Thornhill was also a founder member of the Whig Beefsteak Club.

A set of 38 individual original metal printing plates used for the illustrations for John Lennon’s first book, are to go under the hammer on December 2 at Dickins of Middle Claydon, Bucks.

Humberts of Gloucestershire have bought the estate agency and fine art auction business of Calcutt Maclean Standen.

Auctions to centre on Nottingham, Bristol and Newbury as others become offices

Blandford Auction Rooms have ceased trading as the saleroom was closed by its owners on November 3.

While many are still finding the market sluggish for standard English brown furniture, there is no shortage of demand at the top end as shown by results from the latest sales in London.

A new exhibition to mark the 400th anniversary of the first permanent settlement in America opens at the Museum in Docklands this month.

ANDY Briggs of Fat Cat Fairs has added Woodstock Antiques Fairs to his other three fairs. However, for the next six months at least the name will not change and it will not be incorporated into Fat Cat’s/Silhouette Fairs’ other events at Abingdon, Burford and Lechlade.