2013

The 23rd Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair opened at Olympia in West London last week and as usual trade associations the BADA and LAPADA presented their respective best stand awards to exhibiting members.

This 6¾in (17cm) high, solid ivory head of the Virgin Mary, Hispano-Philippines, dating to the 17th-18th century, is the winner of the ATG Award for Asian art in London.

A thin head by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) was one of a handful of market-fresh works that helped lift the latest Impressionist & Modern art sales in New York.

Due to shrinking membership, members of The Thames Valley Antique Dealers’ Association (TVADA) have voted unanimously to disband at the end of the year.

The French art world has welcomed their government’s decision to cut, rather than increase, the rate on tax for works imported in to France from outside the EU.

ATG’s sister operation, online auction platform the-saleroom.com, has gone some way to solving the problem of alerting auctioneers to rogue bidders under the Data Protection Act.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury auctions have joined forces with Philobiblon, a leading Italian antiquarian books and manuscripts specialist, to offer monthly valuation events, auctions and fine art exhibitions in Rome.

This remarkable fossil of one of the largest animals ever to have walked the Earth becomes the first large dinosaur skeleton to be offered at auction in the UK at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex, on November 27.

This Fabergé carved hardstone figure of an Imperial bodyguard, recently rediscovered in the attic of an estate in upstate New York, has sold for $5.2m (£3.38m) at Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York. It has an extraordinary history.

This John Constable (1776-1837) portrait has been acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland from the estate of the artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) through the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex had to postpone last week’s Interiors sale after the St Jude’s storm knocked out their electricity supply for two days.

An 18th century casket made from fragments of Chinese porcelain has been bought by the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

Size, quality, condition and subject matter are the ingredients by which Berlin porcelain plaques are judged.

As with many areas of collectable ceramics, the marketplace for Sylvac animals has been rather muted in recent times. But, if prices have flat-lined for most pieces then there are still collectors waiting in the wings should something truly rare present itself.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury launch a series of Sunday viewings for selected auctions this Sunday (November 10) at Donnington Priory, Newbury.

When Croydon council announced its controversial wish to sell off part of its Riesco collection of ceramics it probably didn’t envisage such a wave of protest.

In keeping with changing market trends, Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury have launched a new Chinese version of their website.

A major bidding competition arose in Edinburgh last week as auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull offered this Old Master painting as part of their sale of contents from Lingholm House in Cumbria.

Bonhams have unveiled their new £30m headquarters at 101 New Bond Street, laying claim to the title of the world’s top saleroom complex.

Bonhams have promoted Suzannah Yip to the UK Board of Directors with immediate effect.