News

GERMANY: Lempertz’ Old Masters in Cologne on May 19 produced a hammer total of DM6.7m (£2.1m) and a surprise price of DM192,000 (£60,000), paid by the Italian trade against an estimate of just DM4000, for a Bildnis eines Singers, a portrait of a singer with crimson turban and coat, his left forefinger resting on a musical score, 3ft 1in x 2ft 6in (93 x 77cm).

THE Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts has acquired one of the world’s most important collections of English Silver, that of Alan and Simone Hartman.

UK: EARLY notice that, for the fourth season, The Cotswolds Antique Dealers’ Association is holding a series of selling exhibitions in members’ shops and this year they will take place in eight towns between October 13 and 27.

BONHAMS & BROOKS confirmed on Friday evening that they are to merge with Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, ending a week of speculation that this move was imminent.

UK: A SOLICITOR’S clerk has been banned from his profession after a tribunal heard how he arranged the theft of valuable works of art to order.

WILLIAM Blake’s painting God Blessing the Seventh Day is one of a number of art treasures placed under a temporary export ban by Arts Minister Tessa Blackstone.

The Doulton Lambeth Wares by Desmond Eyles is the classic reference book on the products of the Royal Doulton’s famous factory in London – started in 1815 for the lowly task of saltglazing sewer pipes – but the original edition is long out of print.