London

THIS Sunday, April 25, South London organisers P&A Antiques launch The Brocante Antiques Market at Chelsea Village Hotel at Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea football ground, with about 45 dealers, a number of them coming over from France.

NOW in its ninth year, Caroline Penman’s Chelsea Art Fair will be held at Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King’s Road, London SW3, from April 22 to 25.

AFTER 19 years, The London Original Print Fair is still the only event of its kind in Europe and it goes from strength to strength, as you will see when it runs this week from April 22 to 25 at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

WHILE print devotees will be flocking to The London Original Print Fair (April 22-25) this week at the Royal Academy’s new space in Burlington Gardens, off Old Bond Street, it should not be forgotten that there are currently a number of other events celebrating the printmaker’s craft.

A CLUTCH of strong horological results for rare pieces by good makers or with technical innovations were seen in late March at Sotheby’s Bond Street (20/12% buyer’s premium).

LONDON’S art world leaders have come up with an initiative for extending the peak selling period that is London in June.

ON Friday April 2, this distinctive silver and 18 carat rose gold Boucheron lady’s minaudière, pictured right, 5 1/4in (13.5cm) across, was stolen from the Pullman Gallery at 14 King Street in St James’s.

ON Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs of April 28 the castaway was painter Jack Vettriano (b. 1954). When asked by presenter Sue Lawley how much he thought his celebrated oil, The Singing Butler, would sell for at Sotheby’s on April 19, Vettriano’s response was that it would exceed the top estimate of £200,000.

A HIGH Court judge has retired to consider his ruling in a case that could revolutionise the terms under which auctioneers do business.

From the standpoint of manufacturing history, dispersals of any factory collection are always tinged with sadness.

EVERYONE is aware of how rich a thin stratum of Russians have become in the post-glasnost years. The buying power of Russia’s new rich was amply in evidence on March 23 at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street when the spectacular 3ft 1in x 5ft 8 3/4in (94cm x 1.74m) canvas, Nero’s Torches, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902) sold at £260,000 at an otherwise fairly predictable 19th Century Paintings sale.

BOUGHT for a few pounds at a Surrey church bazaar within the last five years, this James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) pen and ink drawing, right, made a tidy profit for its vendor when it fetched a surprise £26,000 at Rosebery’s (15% buyer’s premium) Quarterly Select Auction in West Norwood, South East London.

AFTER more than 10 years of research by a specially convened group of international scholars, Sotheby’s have revealed to the world’s press what they describe as a “newly-acknowledged” work by Johannes Vermeer (1632-75).

DATES have been announced for the first collectors’ sales to be held at Sotheby’s Olympia by the company’s former in-house specialists, now working independently.

As the most prolific of the 18th century English porcelain-producing factories, there is plenty of scope when it comes to collecting Worcester porcelain. There are few collectors, however, who can match the determination of Jeanne and Milton Zorensky.

THE Little Chelsea Antiques Fair is back under the auspices of London ceramics dealer Carolyn Stoddart Scott, who founded it 25 years ago.

Edward Tyson’s Orang-outang, sive homo sylvestris: Or, the anatomy of a pygmiecompared with that of a monkey, an ape, and a man... was the first work to demonstrate scientifically the structural relationships between man and anthropoid ape and one which had a powerful influence on subsequent thoughts on man’s place in nature – albeit the orang-outang on which his work was based was actually a young chimpanzee.

MOVING shop when leases expire, or for other reasons, is always stressful, but some moves are less traumatic than others.

A NEW Thursday antique and collectors market will open in mid-May at Spitalfields, Commercial Road, London E1, run by Sherman & Waterman who already have markets in Covent Garden and Portobello Road.

The hangar saleroom at Christie’s South Kensington was full to overflowing for the much-publicised sale of the Poole Pottery Museum collection and archive on March 31.