South-east England

THE ringleader of the notorious Johnson family gang, who played the key role in a series of audacious thefts at stately homes across the UK, faces an increased prison sentence.

FOR the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island, wooden dance paddles known simply as Rapa were essential to many ceremonies and dances.

GORRINGES are to offer for sale paintings and works of art belonging to Grace Higgens, the former housekeeper at Charleston Farmhouse, the Bloomsbury Group's Sussex retreat.

LEADING art market analyst Dr Clare McAndrew had to address delegates by loudspeaker phone at the annual LAPADA conference, held at Waddesdon Manor on April 21.

INTERNATIONAL Antiques and Collectors’ Fairs (IACF) are to pilot a one-day Monday fair at Newbury Racecourse with two dates confirmed for this year of June 28 and August 2.

SUSSEX police want to speak to the man, pictured here, in connection with two thefts at Gorringes auction house in Lewes.

WHEN Aaron Dean was asked to catalogue a local collection of Modern Firsts at Gorringes' Lewes saleroom, he knew he was dealing with something special.

EWBANK Clarke Gammon Wellers of Surrey have extended their influence south west by forming a strategic alliance with Bournemouth auction house Riddetts.

B2B Events have won a three-year contract to run four or five antiques and collectors’ fairs annually at the Detling showground.

THIS rare Charles II clock by John Knibb of Oxford, c.1685, was recently found by the vendor when sorting through effects inherited from a family member around 50 years ago.

The Detling Antiques and Collectors' Fair on February 27-28 will be the last held at the Kent County Showground by the current organisers. A new organiser is taking on the fair after International Antiques & Collectors' Fairs failed to agree new terms with the venue.

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

THE highlight of Dreweatts' January 13 furniture sale at Donnington Priory was a pair of monumental, late 19th century Italian, sculpted alabaster, twin-handled urns.

Politically correct it is not, but the ‘Negro Cricketer’ pattern, produced for just one year in 1907, certainly ranks among the rarest and most desirable of Royal Doulton series wares.

THE original drawings that Edward Lear made for his 1846 A Book of Nonsense are now rare, and those that exist are for the most part held in institutional collections.

ATG correspondent SIMON HEWITT gains exclusive access to the evidence used to unveil what the world's leading scholars say is the first major Leonardo Da Vinci find for 100 years.

Leading regional auctioneers Dreweatts have formed a strategic alliance with London antiquarian book specialists Bloomsbury Auctions.

BRINGING bidding from different parts of the world to Mallams latest sale in Oxford, this Chinese jade censer went spectacularly over its £2000-3000 estimate on August 26.

THIS Russian icon depicting St George slaying the dragon generated a lively competition when offered on the third day of Bellmans' sale in Wisborough Green, West Sussex.

A SUBSTANTIAL, and previously unpublished, collection of letters written by various members of the Bloomsbury Group to Helen Anrep (1885-1965) is to be sold by the East Sussex auctioneers Gorringes in Lewes on September 3, along with a collection of artworks by members of the group consigned from the same estate.