London

Christie’s English furniture day on June 18 was marked by the £9m auction of a dozen pieces of top-flight examples and by the 369-lot £13.6m sale of the collection of the late Simon Sainsbury.

An entire day was devoted to glass by Bonhams earlier this month as they offered just shy of 500 lots of English and Continental glass in their Bond Street rooms.

AN influx of Russian buyers was in town last week to flex their wallets and work their way through a week-long series of Russian sales in four London rooms. On offer was a rich mix of paintings, Fabergé, arms and armour, porcelain, metalware and anything else the auction houses thought might tempt the Russian palate.

A Chelsea antiques dealer has been badly injured after taking on an armed gang who smashed up his premises. Ian Towning, the owner of the Bourbon-Hanby Antique Centre, was subjected to months of intimidation, before he fought back when three men wielding sledgehammers and carrying a gun robbed the centre in Sydney Street, London SW3 on the afternoon of Monday June 9.

Morton and Eden have sold 41 Celtic gold coins found by a metal detectorist in Kent for £35,500. The coins, some of which are shown here, were found over a three-year period between 2003 and 2006, scattered over a ploughed field near Westerham in Kent, the precise location of which is being kept secret.

TWO very different scenes of cricket matches in progress sold recently at very different locations. The artists themselves could also hardly be more contrasting: Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and L.S. Lowry (1887-1976).

Sotheby’s New York and Christie's King Street both withdrew furniture lots provenanced to dealers John and Carlton Hobbs from sale last week – casualties of the unfolding "fake" furniture scandal first exposed by The Sunday Times.

Hedge funds operating in the art market are shifting their investments from the medium to the short term. That is the view of Randall Willette, managing director of Fine Art Wealth Management Ltd, who was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Art Investment Conference at the London Business School.

THE owners of The Mall in Camden Passage have appealed against the council’s decision to reject their proposals to redevelop the North London antiques centre.

AWARDS for best stands were presented on June 5, the preview day of the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair, which closes on June 15.

THIS week sees a three-day celebration of the art of the lathe organised by the Worshipful Company of Turners.

This year's annual Royal College Art graduate summer exhibition, entitled Show RCA, includes the work of over 400 contemporary art and design students, most of which will be for sale or available for commission.

THIS year’s Dealers vs Auctioneers chairty football match will take place on August 29 at the Bank of England Sports Club, Roehampton.

Bermondsey Antiques Market is about to move back outside after four years, during which time Bermondsey Square has been redeveloped.

Stockspring Antiques will host a loan exhibition entitled The Early James Giles and his Contemporary London Decorators from June 5 to 17 at 114 Kensington Church Street, London.

Treasures of the English Church, an exhibition of more than 300 pieces of sacred silver and gold goes on show at the Goldsmiths' Hall in London from May 30 until July 12.

As of June 1, Sotheby’s auctions in New York and London will be subject to new buyer’s premium thresholds that will hit further buyers of ‘middle range’ art and antiques.

THE next LAPADA London fair could well be in a marquee in Berkeley Square following the Royal Academy’s sale of 6 Burlington Gardens meaning it will no longer be the location of the dealers’ association’s London fair.

A HANDWRITTEN letter written by Albert Einstein in the year before he died giving his thoughts on religion drew spectacular bidding in London last week when it sold at £170,000 (plus premium) against an estimate of just £6000-8000.

THE London Business School hosts the Second 2nd annual Art Investment Conference, The Science & Passion of Art Investing on Friday May 30.