Art and antiques news from 2007

LONDON art dealer Peter Nahum is offering for sale his St James’s business. The Leicester Galleries Ltd, originally founded in 1902 and now with an international reputation for 19th and 20th century British and Eurpean art.

Floating antiques fair comes to fruition

This 18th century needlework panel appears to be a fragment of a work conceived on almost Bayeux Tapestry proportions.

After over 30 years at Hepper House, Bonhams have relocated in Leeds.

Following Christie’s decision to hold liquor sales in New York, Boston auctioneer Skinner is to launch a wine department.

Following the announcement in August of a newly-discovered 1938 fairground scene by Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) scheduled to appear at Sotheby’s on December 13, it has emerged that the scene depicted is not, in fact, Beswick Fair, near Manchester, as had been mooted.

Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted cast of a human skull has been bought by a group of anonymous investors, which apparently includes himself, for its asking price of £50m.

Some of the heat may have left the Jack Vettriano (b.1951) market since his Singing Butler made £660,000 in April 2004, but Sotheby’s nevertheless posted the second highest price ever paid for the artist at auction when they sold Bluebird at Bonneville for £400,000 (plus premium) – the top lot of the firm’s annual sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire on the evening of August 29.

Cheshire auctioneer Sir Patrick Cheyne will sell a remarkable cache of work by the Sheffield School watercolourist George Hamilton Constantine (1878-1967) on September 7.

LONDON coins, medals and stamps specialists Spink have bought the American stamp auctioneers Shreves Philatelic Galleries.

November launch for ‘international’ event

ELTHAM Palace in Greenwich is fully booked on Sunday, September 9 for its regular biannual Art Deco Fair with 15 specialist Deco dealers, including the Design Gallery of Westerham.

OLD film footage of youngsters playing amid the rubble of the Blitz-ravaged London showed that even in our darkest hour war could be turned into a game.

West Sussex auctioneers Worthing Auction Galleries and Scarborough Fine Art are to merge.

As of September 1, the Penkridge Salerooms come under new ownership.

A substantial reward is being offered for the return of a George III ormolu and white marble table clock by Matthew Boulton stolen from Knightsbridge dealership Hotspur on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 22.

The Frieze art fair (October 11-14) at Regents Park has already spawned two ‘tailgate’ events in the form of Scope and Zoo, but this year’s new addition is a little different.

JS Auctions are having to cease operations at their Cotefield Farm premises in Bodicote near Banbury.

DUBLIN auctioneers James Adam have negotiated a €3.5m (£2.4m) sale of remarkable papers setting a record for a single transaction of documents relating to the 1916 Easter Rising.

Sotheby’s match Christie’s with 25% premium on lots sold below £10,000