Art and antiques news from 2010

WINNER of the Country Life-LAPADA Object of the Year, announced last week at the London International Fine Art Fair at Olympia, was the so-called Hausburg cabinet belonging to Kensington Church Street dealers Butchoff Antiques.

WITH the retreat from Dunkirk so much in the news at the moment, Aguttes have a particularly topical offering in their June 18 sale of manuscripts, postcards and historical documents.

LAPADA chairman, the Earl Howe, 59, pictured here, has been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health in the Coalition Government, so under parliamentary rules has resigned his post with the antiques trade’s largest trade association.

This jewelled and gold mounted hardstone model of a turkey by Fabergé was among the highlights of Christie's Russian art sale in London on June 8.

PRIMARY source material relating to the last days of Napoleon’s life has emerged at a charity valuation event in New Zealand and will be offered for sale on June 29. The consignment of more than 40 items includes a lock of Napoleon’s hair and a sketch of the former emperor on his deathbed drawn from life.

THIS Regency mahogany Carlton House desk, embellished with barber's pole stringing and marquetry fleur-de-lys medallions, was consigned for sale at Moore Allen & Innocent of Cirencester and attracted seven phone lines and others in the room.

LINCOLN saleroom Thomas Mawer and Son has been sold to Grantham auctioneer Colin Young.

A TOPICAL July release from the Antique Collectors' Club (ACC) publishing group is Portobello Road, a collection of previously unpublished photographs of the famous market taken over three years in the early 1960s by photographer John Petty.

A MONTH after the murder of Barry George Rubery, Avon and Somerset Police have released details of property missing from his home.

THIS brass inlaid mahogany bracket clock with a white enamel dial signed Drury, Cheshunt, was one of a number of antiques stolen during a break-in at Antiques at the Corn Exchange, Tunbridge Wells.

SOMETHING for the dealer with almost everything, a personalised car registration plate with the legend ANT IK is being sold later this month.

INDUSTRY specialists are keeping a sharp eye on developments in the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) debate – and especially on whether any rise will be accompanied by a reintroduction of taper relief.

SETTING the highest price ever seen at auction for Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), this lifesize sculpture of a mother and child, overshot its £60,000-80,000 estimate at Sotheby's latest sale of Modern British art in London before being knocked down to a private buyer at £120,000.

GREAT Grooms owner James Podger has issued an alert to the Hungerford antiques trade after his premises were ‘cased’ by potential burglars.

NEW data released about thefts from large country houses highlights the targeting of valuable porcelain by criminal gangs over the last three years.

ANGELIC rosy-cheeked village girls were George Clausen’s (1852-1944) staple subject matter. During his time living in the Berkshire village of Cookham Dean, Clausen was particularly preoccupied with this idyllic rural subject matter and, from around 1889, he began to make a series of studies and paintings of a local child, Rose Grimsdale.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs, organisers of the giant antiques and collectors’ event at the Lincolnshire Showground, will launch two new fairs this year.

THE original autograph stock book of Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, found in a box of girlie magazines, sold for £25,000 (plus 17% buyer's premium) at the Shropshire auctioneers Mullock's in Ludlow.

MOST Star Wars aficionados are familiar with the story of the Flintshire pensioner who bought 20 Palitoy action figures for 49p each in 1978 and sold them at Stockton-on-Tees toy specialists Vectis for a small fortune in 2003.

CANTERBURY Auction Galleries are to embark on a new sales format that will double the number of fine sales held annually and offer every lot to a potential worldwide audience of Internet bidders.