2013

French-run PAD London returned to its sleek marquee in Berkeley Square with solid sales reported around the chic mix of design, art and, increased this year, antiquities and tribal art and an even stronger Gallic vibe.

Little did “the Reverend Dr Walter Blandford Warden of Wadham Colledge” of Oxford University realise that one day his name would have such significance in the world of newspapers.

Another Henry Moore sculpture has been taken in the latest in a spate of thefts targeting works by the artist.

Art dealers Messum’s have committed their future to London’s embattled Cork Street by acquiring a new gallery just down the road from their current premises.

The violin played by Titanic bandmaster Wallace Hartley as the ship slid beneath the waves on the morning of April 15, 1912, was always going to a) attract massive worldwide interest and b) bring in the big bucks at auction.

Auctioneer John Nicholson has called for a review of data protection rules when it comes to alerting salerooms to serial non-payers and problem bidders.

Sworders have sold the contents of Debden Manor, Essex from their saleroom in Stansted Mountfitchet – a house sale titled ‘An Architect’s Eye, A Collector’s Passion’.

The Association of Accredited Auctioneers (Triple-A), founded in 2012 by UK regional auctioneers to attract Chinese buyers, are to hold a second auction of Western antiques in China.

Frieze Week, London’s annual contemporary art circus, means big business.

Bill Mastro, once the biggest name in the US sports memorabilia business, has admitted to a federal judge that he doctored the world’s most valuable baseball card to make it appear in mint condition.

The Palm Beach Show Group have acquired the ‘Antiques, Art & Design at the Armory Show,’ known as the ‘Avenue Show’, from Manhattan Media.

This spectacular pair of 19th century Meissen covered urns sailed past their top estimate of $15,000 to bring $175,000 (£114,400) at the sale held by Cottone Auctions in Geneseo, New York earlier this month.

The August 1908 issue of Votes for Women, house magazine of the Women’s Social and Political Union describes ‘the latest novelty in the Union colours – a special belt and buckle, which is being sold at half-a-crown each’.

The English porcelain highlight of the last month was undoubtedly this Worcester coffee pot sold at Tunbridge Wells & Hastings.

If you delight in the 19th century rococo revival style – playful putti, festoons of ormolu and pastoral vignettes – then the Safford sale held by Freeman’s in Philadelphia was for you.

Christopher Marinello, formerly General Counsel for the Art Loss Register, has announced that he is setting up a rival operation, Art Recovery International, a London-based partnership that specialises in recovering stolen, missing, and looted works of art.

Sotheby’s have appointed Fru Tholstrup as director of their new London S|2 gallery, to oversee the running and strategy behind this new purpose-built space for private selling exhibitions of Contemporary Art in Mayfair.

Martin Roberts, the UK specialist who worked as a consultant on the Punta Cana site, discusses the importance of the Pewter Wreck.

Doncaster auctioneer Sid Wilkinson is to sell items from a huge cache of Tudor pewter tablewares recently discovered by professional treasure hunters off the coast of the Dominican Republic.