Art and antiques news from 2015

An art dealer from Cornwall has been sentenced after pleading guilty to seven counts of fraud relating to the sale of fake paintings, including works he claimed were by Alfred Wallis (1855-1942).

Following the closure of Bonhams toy department, two senior specialists have signed up with an ambitious Kent auction house.

The George Cross medal group awarded to Second World War heroine Violette Szabό has sold for £260,000 at London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb.

North-eastern auctioneers Addisons are closing down after almost a century in business.

It was included in one of the Ashmolean Museum’s greatest bequests but this magnificent salt cellar was subsequently discovered to be Nazi loot. Recently restituted, it soared to £850,000 at auction.

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

Former deputy mayor of London, Victoria Borwick MP, has been elected as the new president of the British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA).

Paris auction house Artcurial have formed a new subsidiary to conduct regular sales in Monaco.

Nigel Smith, the Harrogate-based valuer and auctioneer, has joined Morphets of Harrogate as a director after 16 years at Tennants running their Harrogate office.

A study for one of Frederic, Lord Leighton’s (1830-1896) greatest paintings sold to an American private collector for £135,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art.

The new major of Tower Hamlets has pledged to exhibit Henry Moore’s Old Flo in London’s East End after the local council were declared the legal owners of the sculpture in the High Court.

The online auction house Fine Art Bourse (FAB) has announced a major consignment for its first sale in September. An Ionian Dancer by John William Godward (1861-1922) will be offered with $300,000-400,000 estimate.

The Stanley Gibbons Group has bought online wine trading platform Bid for Wine.

This superbly patinated Shona hardwood headrest sold for £23,000 at only the second auction at new Stowmarket saleroom Bishop & Miller.

Two rare brooches by Wiener Werkstätte founder Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) caused a sensation when they appeared in the recent Jugendstil and Design auction held at Kinsky in Vienna.

The Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, has welcomed the news that swathes of former staff members are to face charges relating to stolen property.

This striking 2ft 1½in (64.4cm) high Luba figural bowstand made c.1880 by the Warua Master was the runaway star of London’s high season sales.

A stolen Auguste Rodin sculpture, recovered after it was consigned to Christie’s in 2011, will go to auction later this year.

Mayfair art agent Timothy Sammons is facing a string of legal claims over soured multi-million-pound deals in the United Kingdom and the United States involving paintings by Van Gogh, Canaletto, Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani and Magritte.

Berlin online auction house Auctionata set a house record when this Chinese enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock was sold for €2.8m (£2.15m), or €3.37m including premium.