Art and antiques news from 2009

Jonathan Pratt, pictured, the Sussex auctioneer who has become a housewives’ favourite as a BBC antiques expert, is among the familiar faces revealing all for the forthcoming Famousmales Testicular Cancer Awareness Campaign.

THE inaugural ATG Online Auctioneer of the Year award has gone to Christie’s South Kensington.

GUERNSEY’S Martel Maides and Byrne’s of Saltney, Chester have become the latest UK regional auctioneers to benefit from the insatiable demand for Chinese mark and period works of art. Both achieved house records last week.

IT’S business as usual at Cockermouth auctioneers Mitchells for their fine art sale on Thursday and Friday, December 3-4.

DEALERS in South London have cautiously welcomed Southwark Council’s proposal to relaunch Bermondsey Market, but remain sceptical as to whether funds will be made available to make a significant difference.

CHINA is to encourage the return of its cultural heritage by offering overseas collectors “reasonable compensation”.

FOUNDED by Brian and Anna Haughton in 1982, the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar will from next year be incorporated into the organisers new event Art Antiques London.

THE Yves Saint Laurent/Pierre Bergé sale mark II was never going to be in the same league as the 374m euros spring extravaganza.

DEVON County Antiques Fairs (DCAF) are pulling out of the Westpoint Exhibition Centre in Exeter because of costs and the size of the venue.

THE Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft has reportedly paid nearly £1.5m for the only double Victoria Cross awarded during the First World War.

THE severe flooding in the North West of England has had a heavy impact on the antiques trade. A number of shops had to close at the end of last week and transport links in the region were badly hit.

WOODBRIDGE, Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher included a small collection of post-War silver by Robert Welch, Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin in their November 18 sale.

MORE than 100 dealers braved gales to be at Olympia at 9.30 on the morning of November 18 for a meeting called by Florida impresario David Lester. They were there to discuss the London International Fine Art Fair, the renamed June Olympia which he co-owns with Clarion but very much runs himself.

THE artist may not have a famous name or any track record in the saleroom, but arguably the most intriguing lot at Rogers Jones' latest Welsh Sale in Colwyn Bay was a collection of 50 striking Art Deco watercolours by Gladys Williamson (1914-2007).

UK museums whose own rules prevent them from returning Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners can now do so thanks to a new Act of Parliament.

A REMARKABLE collection of 70 early toasters from one private collection will be offered by Brown & Co at the Brigg Auction Rooms, North Lincolnshire as part of their winter fine art and antiques sale on December 12.

ONLY three weeks after it was announced that Antiquarian Booksellers Association president Alan Shelley was standing down because of ill health, we are sorry to report that he has passed away.

EARLY 17th century embroidery is a fairly rare beast, but it does surface occasionally.

DEUTSCHE Bank have signed a five-year deal to sponsor ART HK, the Hong Kong art fair which launched in 2008.

THE St Ives studio that housed Sir Terry Frost, Peter Blake and Francis Bacon has won a £900,000 restoration grant.