2012

Borro, the world’s first online asset lender, are to advance loans against high-value items being consigned for sale by auction or private treaty. The company have devised a scheme whereby they will loan up to 70% of the estimated sale price of assets valued between £50,000 and £1m, such as fine art, jewellery and wine, recouping their costs and fees once the sale has been completed.

A pair of rugs signed Francis Bacon, and thought to relate to the artist’s early career as an interior decorator, have been withdrawn from sale for the second time in three years.

Original film footage of the 1969 moon launch, including the moments before Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts boarded the Apollo spacecraft, has come to light in West London.

The Scottish organisers and dealers Arte in Europa, best known for organising the ‘Edinburgh Art Fair’, are expanding south of the Border with a new fair in Cheshire.

The antiques trade could soon fall victim to the global rattan shortage prompted by an Indonesian export ban.

1stdibs, the global online marketplace for high-end art, antiques and decorative objects, has wholly acquired Online Galleries, the British-based portal favoured by LAPADA, the BADA, SLAD and CINOA.

While most initiatives connected with the Asian art market continue to expand apace, the ‘New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show’ – since 1995 a lynchpin of New York Asia Weeks – has announced that it will not run in the spring of 2013 due to lack of a suitable venue.

Sculptures displayed in the athletes’ village of London’s Olympic Park are to be offered at auction.

The hub of specialist auctioneers in West London, 25 Blythe Road, founded by arms, armour and militaria specialist Thomas Del Mar, is launching web-based picture sales.

A saddlecloth reputedly used by Queen Elizabeth I during her state visit to Bristol in 1574 is to be offered at auction.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has struck an exclusive deal with Christie’s to sell its enormous holdings of works from the artist’s estate.

Leading copyright lawyer Simon Stokes has just published the Second Edition of ‘Artist’s Resale Right’, the industry guide to the law as it applies to Droit de Suite.

Last month, we reported that seven of the 22 galleries on Cork Street in Mayfair were informed in August that their leases will not be renewed next year.

A 51-year-old man has been arrested in connection with ‘bounced cheques’ at an antiques fair.

Bonhams have released limited financial results for 2011, setting company revenues at £111m, a 22% increase on 2010, according to the Financial Times.

Two men have been jailed for a string of burglaries across the South East which included taking a rhino head from Haslemere Museum in Surrey.

This Lalique ‘cire perdue’ vase was discovered by Anderson & Garland in a house just outside of Morpeth, Northumberland during a routine probate valuation.

A unique ceremonial key for opening Victoria Bridge in Kuala Kangsor, Malaysia, is one of the more unusual items coming up at JP Humbert of Towcester’s September 26-27 sale.

Greenslade Taylor Hunt will offer this small sitting horse by Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) in Taunton on September 20.

Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury are selling the work of some of the most collectable British artists of the 20th century in their paintings auction on September 19.