Dealers

British Art Market Federation lobbying has persuaded the Department of Trade and Industry to provide grants for 13 LAPADA members to exhibit at a Chicago antiques fair.

ELEVEN top dealers make their debut at this summer’s Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair and it is clear that the organisers of our most prestigious event have taken the opportunity to beef up their fine art quota.

The conviction of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz on charges of conspiracy and trading in stolen and smuggled artefacts has sent shockwaves through the trade.

THE judgment in the £1.5m claim against Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s could have important repercussions for the rules and conventions on attribution in UK art sales.

UK: Thornhill Galleries are a 120-year-old British company that specialise in architectural antique interior design. They make panelled rooms on commission in antique pine and seasoned hardwood and carry a wide stock of period fireplaces and accessories, garden statuary and other architectural features.

Exhibitions outside London: Specialist print dealer Elizabeth Harvey-Lee (1 West Cottage, Middle Aston Road, North Aston, Oxon OX25 5QB. Tel: 01869 34 7164) has built up an impressive reputation for producing informative, well-illustrated stock catalogues.

LAST year’s United States class action against Sotheby’s and Christie’s over price fixing may now be followed by similar action in the UK. Dealers who missed out on the $512m compensation paid to settle the claims over US auctions will meet in London this week to plan a similar legal challenge in Britain.

MAYFAIR art dealers Agnew’s are hotly contesting claims for a £1.5m refund over an Old Master which is at the centre of a dispute over who painted it.

LONDON: Three dealers exhibiting at the Spring Fine Art and Antiques Fair at Olympia in West London will hold a concurrent joint exhibition just two minutes’ walk away from the West London exhibition complex, with the object of pulling in the public and any decorators who are in town.

LONDON: Mayfair’s Lefevre Gallery, a leading player on the London art scene since it was founded in 1926, is to close.

UK: THE Government have issued a warning to the trade about agencies attempting to cash in on the 1998 Data Protection Act at dealers’ expense.

TRADING Standards officers have issued a warning to the trade to be on the alert for fake Royal Doulton. Several pieces have come to light over the past few months, including Lambeth Ware.

KONRAD Bernheimer, the Munich and London-based Old Master Paintings dealer has confirmed that he is to acquire Colnaghi, the Old Master paintings and drawings dealership. The gallery will continue to operate under the Colnaghi name from the existing gallery at 15 Old Bond Street, London.

The German-based Oetke Group are currently in negotiations to sell the Bond Street galleries of Colnaghi, one of the oldest names in the London art trade, to the London and Munich Old Master dealer Konrad Bernheimer.

The loan exhibitions held by London jewellery dealers Wartski have become something of an event in the summer calendar. They focus on specific areas of the jeweller’s art and previously the spotlight has been turned on such subjects as the tiara in 1997, and two years ago an impressive show dedicated to the work of the Parisian firm Falize Frères.

UK: AGNEW’S are set to open a new gallery for Contemporary art in Old Bond Street in January.

UPPINGHAM treen dealer Wendy Grindley celebrated the first anniversary of her founding of Rutland Antiques Fair on November 19 with the launch of a 50-dealer event at Barnsdale Country Club, overlooking Rutland Water.

DEALERS in the Dover area have contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette to complain about a local police initiative asking them to fingerprint their customers.

UK: FOUR weeks of expert evidence and deliberation has ended with the Parliamentary Select Committee needing the chairman’s casting vote to keep the Kent Bill from being thrown out.

UK: TOMMASO Zanzotto, chairman of Stocklight, which owns the Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books recently acquired Bloomsbury Book Auctions, has vowed to keep the two companies totally separate.