UK

UK: PHILLIPS Cardiff are among the three rooms which will soon close, but they held a good sale on August 4 where this pair of English 17th century brass candlesticks, 61/2in (17cm) high were consigned to the rooms from a private source.

UK: JAPANESE lacquer is a complex form of decoration requiring the painstaking application of layer upon layer and incorporating different materials to build up the finished pictorial surface.

UK: AUGUST may be the quietest time of the year for the majority of the UK trade, but any business this week for the auctioneers and shopkeepers of Cornwall is likely to be overshadowed by a cosmic obligation on Wednesday morning.

UK: A commercially appealing example of Edwardian sporting art at the Leyburn salerooms of Tennants on July 16, this 2ft 61/2in by 231/2in (77.5 x 60cm) oil on canvas Left in Charge by Phillip Eustace Stretton, signed and dated 1904, had been consigned in untouched and original condition from a Harrogate deceased estate.

UK: FOLLOWING a meeting with LAPADA last week, Kent trading standards officers have agreed to arrange further discussions in early August between trade representatives and those who actually drafted the Kent Bill.

UK: AT THE first sale in their new Norcote saleroom near Cirencester on July 9, Moore Allen & Innocent sold this distinctive walnut leather-seated early 18th century armchair for £21,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium).

UK: PERFECT for amateur painters of ceramics or the more dedicated collector of Worcester porcelain, is this mahogany cased set of ceramic colours, left, produced by Reeves and Son for Hancock and Son, the Victorian owners of the Royal Worcester factory.

UK: LIVING up to its billing as one of the sales of the century The Rothschild Collection netted a hammer total of £52 million at Christie’s in London last week, the highest ever realised for a single-owner collection in Europe.

UK: GROWING concern has led to calls for action among dealers in Kent faced with a new law which would make it a criminal offence not to register and keep detailed records when buying and selling secondhand goods in the county.

UK: THE ENORMOUS wheel screw on this simulated oven gives some clue as to the gruesome purpose of the plated contraption which turned up at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on June 23.

UK: June saw London re-affirm its position as one of the world’s two premier venues for selling top quality Impressionist and Modern art with record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

UK: DISCOVERED in an English collection, this French, gilt and carved fauteuil sold to a private buyer at Christie’s in London on June 23 for £350,000 (plus premium).

UK: THE SECOND half of last week saw a selection of top quality antiques fairs in London that is not matched anywhere.

UK: THE WEEK before Harry Lyons of New Century opened his exhibition of Dresser at Kensington Church Street, the Leicester rooms of Warner Auctions sold this gilt-lined ebonised side table attributed to Christopher Dresser.

UK: AN appeal is likely this week against a council’s decision to enforce the return of nine paintings sold in the major dispersal at Noseley Hall in Leicestershire at the end of last September.

UK: IT may have been a touch risky for Phillips (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) to illustrate a dodo on the front cover of a catalogue for the sale of 19th and 20th century design in Edinburgh on May 21, but thankfully for the auctioneers it proved to be anything but a dead duck when it came to the bidding.

UK: ROBERT Gatling presented his rapid fire gun to the killing fields of the American Civil War – sparking a race between rival generals, statesmen and technicians to develop an automatic weapon with the capacity for achieving the most kills in the shortest time.

UK: HALLS of Shrewsbury have acquired Boothmans in the heart of Chester. The saleroom and fine art business belonging to Peter and Sally Williams once housed Sotheby’s Chester branch – where Richard Allen of Halls was director.

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: 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.