Art and antiques news from 2008

The art and antiques business received some welcome positive publicity last week as a raft of national newspapers picked up on the headline findings of the first RICS Art & Antiques Market Survey.

The Louvre have secured the return of a French Crown Jewel after 121 years, through a private sale with Christie’s New York.

Cheshire auctioneers Robert Stones and Nick Allsopp of Peter Wilson, in Nantwich, have taken part in an experiment at King’s College, London, test-driving the so-called ‘intelligent gavel’.

MARK Law and his fellow directors of Amor Holdings have completed their acquisition of Partridge of Bond Street about 18 months ahead of schedule.

The Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston, Lancashire will unveil a new Ceramics and Glass Gallery on May 14.

The World Jewellery Confederation have drawn up a voluntary code as a first step in trying to establish an international standard for precious metal jewellery, flatware and hollowware.

Two strong results for very different pieces were produced in Christie’s double bill of English furniture on April 24.

SOMEWHERE on a shelf in a pub in the Midlands there may be five rare books that could throw a whole new light on the Brontë family.

ONE of London’s oldest and most traditional art dealerships, Agnew’s, has sold its historic galleries in Bond Street and will downsize its Old Master paintings department to concentrate on contemporary art.

In a move that will impact hundreds of auctioneers worldwide, eBay are to discontinue their Live Auctions business by the end of this year.

A BATTERED old Bible in a strongbox with a woodcut pasted on the inside of the lid was sold with a boxed rosary for £6200 by auctioneer Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on March 9. Behind it there was quite a story.

CONCERN over credit rules in New York has led a lawyer to draw up guidelines to protect the rights of anyone consigning art to dealers for sale there.

Christie’s are confidently expecting to set a new auction record for British furniture in London on June 18 when they offer a small but exclusive auction of just a dozen lots under the title 12: Exceptional furniture.

Nearly two years after its rushed introduction in the Republic of Ireland, the Artist’s Resale Right is still causing confusion among auctioneers, dealers, artists and aministrators.

A world record price for a comic-strip illustration was paid at a specalist sale at Artcurial in Paris on March 29: Georges Remi Hergé’s 1932 ink-and-gouache design for the cover of Tintin en Amérique.

THE French government’s change of heart over the Artist’s Resale Right is being hailed a sea change by fellow ‘anti’ campaigners.

London’s latest series of Islamic auctions, held from April 7-11, produced a series of record-breaking statistics. The result of the week came at Sotheby’s on April 9 when a 14 1/2in (37cm) long iron and copper key to the ka’ba, the holiest place in the Islamic world, sold for £8.2m, establishing a new auction high for any Islamic work of art.

NORTH Yorkshire saleroom Tennants, who have made a name selling the furniture of Robert Thompson, have secured an entire Mouseman commission for sale in July.

An image that may rewrite the history of photography has been withdrawn from a Sotheby’s New York sale pending further research.

HAVING conducted over 2000 sales, freelance auctioneer Noel Lynch is used to standing on a platform. But on May 1, he will be looking for votes rather than bids as he aims to win a seat in the London Assembly for the Green Party.