London

CLARION Events announced last week that stand sales for the Summer Olympia fair this June are up over 100 per cent from this time last year.

IN what promises to be a massive test of the market for golfiana, Christie’s will auction the world’s most important private collection of golf art and memorabilia on May 30.

MALLETT have quit their New Bond Street showroom for Ely House in Dover Street, in the heart of Mayfair.

CHARLES Miller Ltd, auctioneers of maritime and scientific models, instruments and fine art, are moving offices and storage to larger premises on the New Kings Road.

KNOCKED down at £19m, Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Henrietta Moraes was the top lot of London’s Contemporary art auction series last week by some margin.

ONLINE auction house Auction Atrium has ceased trading, still owing a six-figure sum to consignors. The firm is likely to formally enter liquidation later this month. How much vendors and other creditors receive ultimately depends on the value placed upon the assets of the firm.

PRICES for Henry Moore (1898-1986) have been rising consistently in recent years, but the performance of this large-scale bronze sculpture at auction last week dramatically lifted the artist to previously unseen levels.

Posters of St Moritz, Davos, Gstaad continue to dominate at ski sales in London.

Bidders in the room, on the phones and the internet were all in action last week to contest the 475-lot sale of the collection of Will Fisher, founder of London dealers Jamb, at Christie’s South Kensington.

FIGURES just released show substantial growth in London’s coins market for 2011.

AUCTION Atrium, the online auction house based in Kensington Church Street, London, has announced that it has ceased trading.

The single-owner sale of English and Dutch drinking glasses collected by A.C. Hubbard offered over 500 lots to tempt enthusiasts into the saleroom.

The dates for the trio of major London summer fairs have now been released.

In clock collecting, the gold standard of original condition can be a difficult one to meet. Clocks almost always needing repairs or replacement parts to keep functioning day in, day out for centuries.

Old collections are the lifeblood of the arms and armour market, bringing carefully selected items with cast-iron provenance back to the market.

THIS well-preserved Charles II delft portrait charger established a new house record for Rosebery's of West Norwood in south east London on December 13 with a hammer price of £105,000.

SILVER dealer Daniel Bexfield has claimed a moral victory over the Burlington Arcade planning row after most of the controversial proposals were withdrawn – and others turned down at the consultation meeting on December 8.

THE strong competition that emerged for some of the most exciting pictures at the latest Old Master sales in London helped lift the series and compensated for the lack of interest at lower levels.

A HIGHLIGHT of the autumn Russian art series in London was Sotheby's sell-out 127-lot sale of works from the family of Alexander Benois (1870-1960), a name synonymous with the Ballet Russes.

“EUROPE certainly shouldn’t be creating new burdens,” said Chancellor George Osborne as he dismissed plans for a financial transaction tax on the City as “a bullet aimed at the heart of London”.