UK

UK: A number of auctioneers have remarked on a rather flat silver market of late but the Surrey auctioneers Crow's saw no such reluctance among buyers with a number of offerings going well above estimate.

UK: Sotheby’s has strongly denied newspaper claims that its New Bond Street headquarters are up for sale, but a senior executive did confirm that the company has valued its other property in preparation for the move to Olympia this September.

UK: Moroccan textiles were the strong suit in Christie’s South Kensington’s May 4 sale of Islamic and Indian textiles, none more so than this impressive 2ft 3in x 8ft x6in (70cm x 2.6m) silk-embroidered linen ceremonial panel dated to the 18th century and worked with striking abstract designs.

Silver spirit labels (‘Holland’ refers to Dutch Gin) are not quite two a penny, but they are among the cheapest drinking trinkets available.

UK: AN extraordinary breakdown in communication between Earls Court and Olympia, owners of the famous Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair, and London organiser of one-day fairs Matthew Adams resulted in Adams Antiques Fairs losing an Olympia slot with no written notice or confirmation.

Having dispersed the collection of Sir John Gielgud early last month Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) went on to offer that of his good friend, fellow thespian and fellow knight of the realm, the late Sir Ralph Richardson, on April 27.

UK: Preliminary proceedings have begun at the High Court in a £100m claim by the estate of Francis Bacon against Marlborough Fine Art (London) and Lichtenstein-registered Marlborough International Fine Art. The estate claims the galleries were in breach of fiduciary duty and exerted “undue influence” in their dealings with the artist.

UK: A dozen telephone lines led to the Tithe Barn salerooms of Bruton Knowles, near Cheltenham on April 26, all contesting the finest lot of period satinwood in the provinces this year.

UK: An ancient Celtic gold ornament provided the high point of Christie’s South Kensington’s Antiquities sale last week when it was purchased for £1m by London’s British Museum, to whom it was on loan from 1993 to 2000.

UK: This elegant 4ft 3in (1.3m) wide early Georgian mahogany two-door commode stole the show at Phillips’ furniture sale in London on Tuesday, April 24, when it sold for £500,000 to London dealers Jeremy Ltd.

UK: Some fishermen claim that pike have an appetite for human flesh – the elderly members of a crown green bowling club in Warrington say this stuffed and mounted 201b monster has been responsible for several fatalities among their anoraked colleagues in recent years.

UK: A key feature of the Bloomsbury Book Auctions sale of April 5 was a private collection of the works of A.A. Milne.

UK: THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating a £425,000 Lottery windfall that has helped it acquire a stunning coin collection.

GOOD stock furniture was the strength of this 289-lot, £130,000 Halls Shropshire sale on March 9 where the top price was taken by a c.1775 two-tier mahogany dumbwaiter.

Letters, manuscripts and photographs from many of Britain’s most celebrated artists are to form a new art research library that will be open to the public at Tate Britain.

Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, by Amin Jaffer

FOR 20 of its 27 years the annual Harrogate Antique and Fine Art Fair has been organised by West Country-based Louise Walker but with 80 exhibitors this year’s staging from May 3 to 6 is the biggest so far.

Heavy snow across Staffordshire on the morning of this 800-lot dispersal did not deter buyers, with the auctioneers noticing a marked increase in the usual number of phone bids.

UK: THE V&A have announced that they are to open their new British Galleries 1500-1900 on November 22.

UK: One of this year’s most stunning finds, a group of four rare Sèvres Etruscan red ground dessert plates from the Prince Napoleon Service, 1854-6, offered at Mellors and Kirk, Nottingham, on April 5.