Sotheby’s Paris on the move by 2023
Sotheby’s Paris headquarters will be moving to a new site in 2023, where Galerie Bernheim Jeune was previously located on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The Galerie Bernheim- Jeune, housed on the same site since 1925, played a major role in the development of the 20th century art market. The new premises will enable Sotheby’s to develop its exhibition space.
New US rules on money laundering
The Anti-Money Laundering Act 2020 (AMLA) was passed in Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act in the US on January 1. Among the changes in this AMLA is that antiquities dealers, advisers and consultants have been added to the definition of “financial institutions” that are subject to anti-money laundering rules.
This means they must meet certain record-keeping, reporting and other AML compliance requirements. The new law also directs the Department of Treasury and the Department of Justice to conduct an assessment of the ways in which the art trade facilitates money laundering and terror financing, and to recommend to Congress the degree to which the art market should be subject to AML regulations.
Robinson and Jones promoted
Dreweatts has promoted two members of staff.
Joe Robinson has been appointed head of house sales and private collections. He has worked in Dreweatts’ business development team for three years and previously in the chairman’s office at Christie’s after graduating from the University of Nottingham in 2016.
Imogen Jones has been appointed office manager at Dreweatts’ Pall Mall office in St James’s. She will work with the team of specialists based in London.
She previously worked on the refurbishment project of the Dreweatts offices and joined the firm in 2019 as the administrator for its Pall Mall office and Bloomsbury Auctions. After graduating in 2015 from Durham University, she worked with a number of London galleries and auction houses before joining Christie’s in 2017.
Funding boosts bookbinding
The Clothworkers’ Company has helped fund a course in bookbinding. The last full-time bookbinding course in the UK (the Queen’s Bindery Apprenticeship Scheme at Windsor Castle) ceased last year due to Covid-19.
However, now thanks to this funding West Dean College of Arts and Conservation near Chichester has received support for its Designer Bookbinders’ ‘Transferring Design initiative’ which encourages students on allied courses in UK universities and colleges to consider a career in bookbinding.
The programme funding has enabled Kate Holland, a fellow of Designer Bookbinders, to teach a course within the graduate diploma in conservation studies, specialising in books and library materials.
Holland said: “Hand bookbinding forms an important part of our national heritage and techniques such as edge gliding and gold finishing are in serious danger of being lost forever. The Clothworkers’ Company, in collaboration with Designer Bookbinders, have been incredibly supportive and generous with their funding.”
Huge bequest for Williamsburg
Among the items from the Joseph and June Hennage Collection is this Philadelphia mahogany high chest, c.1770. It came from the Bache family from Sarah (Franklin) and Richard Bache, daughter and son-in-law of Benjamin Franklin, and may have been originally purchased by Franklin’s wife Deborah.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has received its most significant American decorative arts bequest in its 90-year history. It comes from the Joseph and June Hennage Collection which comprises more than 400 objects including paintings, prints, antique toy animals, vehicles and figures. It includes examples of furniture from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, as well as silver by the major East Coast artisans of that day.
The items will be become part of the collection of the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum which is part of Colonial Williamsburg.
Peterborough fair date rearranged
Fair organiser IACF has rescheduled its Peterborough Festival of Antiques which had been planned for Easter. Due to coronavirus restrictions and after consulting with the showground and the local authority it has made the decision to postpone until May 21-22.
Most read
The most viewed stories for week December 7-13 on antiquestradegazette.com
1 Promotions, appointments and moves – the latest Movers and Shakers across the art and antiques market
2 Orientalist basin, mahogany bookcases, Arts & Crafts oak chest – five auction highlights that caught bidders’ eyes
3 Open Art Fair appeals court ruling on stand fee
4 Dorset museum raises funds to secure Thomas Hardy archive from London book dealer
5 Medal awarded to Suffragette who threw a lump of iron at Churchill’s car comes up at auction
In Numbers
14
The number of works from the hoard discovered in Cornelius Gurlitt’s Munich flat in 2012 that have been conclusively identified and returned to their original owner heirs. The last of these works, Das Klavierspiel (Playing the Piano) by Carl Spitzweg, which was owned by music publisher Henri Hinrichsen, was consigned to Christie’s last week by his heirs, according to the BBC.
