Art and antiques news from 2009

For some years now it has been traditional to hold a major auction of antique glass in the immediate run-up to the festive season.

Overall sales figures for art and antiques salerooms outside London were largely down for 2008 – but most ended a difficult year with better than expected results. For a table of the provincial salerooms' totals click here.

Top London antique furniture and works of art dealers Mallett are to leave their landmark Bond Street shop and find new premises in the Mayfair area. One of the few antiques and art dealers quoted on the London Stock Exchange, Mallett told shareholders the proposed move was a result of a massive rent hike and the changing character of the street.

Ten people were injured when a double-decker bus, swerving to avoid a van, crashed into the front of the Lacy Gallery on Westbourne Grove, London.

The death last year aged 98 of Roger Warner brought to a close the long career of one of the last old school eclectic but knowledgeable country dealers.

NORMAN Adams Ltd., leading specialists in classic English period furniture for more than eight decades, are shutting their Knightsbridge showrooms and putting their current stock into a sale at Sotheby’s.

A former long-term employee of New England auctioneers Skinner has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly stealing over $724,000 worth of cash and auctioned property.

The British Government have notified the European Commission that they will not apply the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) to the heirs of dead artists until 2012.

A rare set of three graduated Plymouth baluster-shaped hard paste porcelain mugs, c.1768-70, were offered at Mellors & Kirk of Nottingham last month.

The evocatively named Pickleherring factory is one of the earliest known locations where English delftware was produced.

FOUNDERS and organisers Patricia and Ralph Harvey have sold their long-running Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair to one of their regular exhibitors.

THE future of The Mall antiques centre in Camden Passage looks set to hang in the balance until well into 2009 following the public inquiry into the landlord’s proposals to redevelop the Grade II listed building.

STAYING topical but putting a comic slant on events, an exhibition of original artwork for cartoons relating to financial and political crises will be a feature of The Watercolour & Drawings Fair next February.

A retired Massachusetts lawyer found guilty of involvement in a major art theft that extends back three decades has been sentenced to seven years in a Federal prison.

Golding Young have acquired fellow Lincolnshire auctioneers Eleys.

THE year came to an end with gold prices reaching an all-time high in Britain.