News

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.

UK: If proof were needed that it is collector’s silver that is the most desirable category of ware in today’s market one could have had no better example than the sale held by Bonhams & Brooks (15/10% buyer’s premium) last Thursday, July 5. This 261-lot auction was especially strong on vertu and collectors items swelled by a number of private collections.