News

UK: BY the mid-19th century Redditch in Warwickshire had become the centre of the world for the production of fishing hooks and needles, supposedly skills handed down by the monks of Bordesley Abbey, who learnt their metalworking talents from links with Spain.

UK: A SECURITY device which promises to revolutionise the handling and mobility of large antiques – in particular garden statuary – has just come onto the market after winning the London International Inventions Fair Invention of the Year Award.

UK: THE Cornish Ware range is one of a number of once everyday 20th century ceramics now attracting serious collectors.

UK: THOSE decorative pieces worked by amateurs using seashells have always come low down in the art world pecking order but of late their attractions have become more and more appreciated as seen when an Irish pair of shellwork botanical studies took £26,000 at Mallams, Oxford, on February 3.

SWITZERLAND: WORKING for posterity with a fast-approaching deadline? Unconcerned about leaving those vital documents unfinished? Then perhaps you need the inspiration of this automaton – a perfect memento mori for the millennial slacker.

UK: A DOG had bitten one of the legs... and possibly worse, and two parts were knocked off by individuals at the viewing, but neither of these detractions put off Smith the Rink of Harrogate from bidding £13,400 plus 12 per cent buyer’s premium for this George III tea-table at Patrick Cheyne of Altrincham on May 8. Why?

UK: OVERTLY Continental pieces of furniture are not the most commercial proposition in the current trading environment (the strength of sterling have limited the overseas presence for many months now), but Bellman’s West Sussex rooms had no difficulty in selling a fine example of Dutch/Flemish cabinetmaking at their April sale.