Art and antiques news from 2015

A 20-piece Nantgarw dessert service has sold for £20,000 at Campbells of Worthing. It was consigned on behalf of a titled lady.

Dulwich Picture Gallery launched a long overdue show of watercolours by Eric Ravilious (1903-42) last week, an artist unswayed by fashion whose paintings and designs encapsulate the spirit of inter-War England.

This 5in (12cm) high pair of Victorian salts in the form of kangaroos made by Bond Street silversmiths Hunt & Roskell sold for £18,000 at Catherine Southon’s latest sale at Farleigh Court Golf Club near East Croydon.

A fresh warning has gone out to UK museums and galleries that they could face future funding cuts if they sell items from their collections.

Sheffield’s antiques quarter has been put on the map with new brown signs to illustrate its cultural significance.

Antique dealers, collectors, auctioneers and museum representatives gathered in Connecticut last month to oppose a bill seeking a total and uncompromising ban on the sale of ivory.

Over 700 lots from West Horsley Place in Surrey, the home of the late Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe, are going under the hammer at Sotheby’s in May.

Police investigating a robbery at Montpellier Antiques in Harrogate on the morning of Monday, March 16, have arrested and charged a 24-year-old man from Manchester.

This c.1690 marquetry cabinet on stand in the manner of the Anglo-Dutch maker Gerrit Jensen (d.1715) sold for £35,000 at the latest sale at Brightwells of Leominster.

Like many an antiques dealer, Mark Griffin of Arbatel Antiques lives something of a double life.

Lord Ashcroft is best known for Victoria Crosses as a collector, but the bravery of the Dambusters inspired his latest attempts to buy gallantry awards.

Any drawings enthusiast visiting Paris last week would have been spoilt for choice.

Two of the three people sentenced for their role in the Cameo auction house fraud have lodged appeals against their convictions.

Eleven men charged with conspiracy to steal as part of a national investigation into high-value thefts at an auction house and museums have pleaded not guilty at Birmingham Crown Court.

It has the highest-ever estimate placed on a work of art at auction. Predicted to fetch ‘in the region of $140m’, Christie’s are offering Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)’ in New York on May 11.

Sotheby’s have begun live streaming their sales on eBay’s new auctions platform.

Two large 18th century gold medals depicting events from the reign of Catherine the Great sold for spectacular sums at Duke’s latest auction in Dorchester.

A remarkable hoard of coins shedding light on the power struggles between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons has come onto the open market in a highly unusual sale.

COMMENT: One is a marketing expert from outside the industry with a background in the media, luxury and entertainment sectors, the other is a career auction house professional with decades of service at the same company under his belt.

Drama came at a recent sale at Taylor’s Auction Rooms in Montrose when a lot of two pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain sold for £200,000.