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ITALIAN auctioneers Finarte have announced that they will no longer make their auction results public because of complaints from both consignors and buyers.

HAS the top end of the art market bounced back? This was the opinion ventured by some commentators after the flagship sales of Impressionist and Modern art in New York last week.

CECIL Court, the pedestrian thoroughfare in the West End of London that is home to around 20 antiquarian book dealers, has become the focus of a wider political debate on business rates.

DAMIEN Hirst and juggled dates have severely skewed Sotheby’s third quarter results for 2009, contributing to a fall in revenue of 41 per cent year-on-year to $44.9m.

JUST as Asian Art in London got underway, a surprise regional highlight emerged in Devon. A pair of 18th century Chinese Export pheasants were consigned for sale at Plymouth Auction Rooms by a local vendor, whose family had owned the birds for at least three generations.

ALAN Shelley has decided that he can no longer continue as Antiquarian Booksellers Association president owing to illness.

ON December 9, Morton and Eden are to offer what is possibly the most important collection of Renaissance medals to come onto the market in decades.

EIGHT UK salerooms have been short-listed for the ATG Online Auctioneer of the Year award.

Politically correct it is not, but the ‘Negro Cricketer’ pattern, produced for just one year in 1907, certainly ranks among the rarest and most desirable of Royal Doulton series wares.

ESTIMATED at £800-1200, this Victorian silver ewer modelled as a kangaroo sold for £24,000 at Chorley's of Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire on October 22 to a London dealer on the telephone who saw off competition from Australia and France.

ROYAL Mail have lost another court case over their promise to cover losses under their special delivery services, and face further legal action. Yet they will still not change the terms and conditions that landed them in court.

GUERNSEY auctioneers Martel Maides look set to become the latest UK regional firm to benefit from the rise and rise of Chinese mark and period porcelain after three Yongzheng period (1723-1735) famille rose bowls were consigned by a Channel Islands family who have owned them for at least 80 years.

BONHAMS have appointed Jonathan Horwich as Global Director of Picture Sales, starting on December 1.

CHRISTIE’S have launched a one-stop insurance service for UK private clients, taking in all their insurance requirements in a single-payment policy package.

AUCTIONEERS across the country have recently been the recipients of this potentially interesting document, a copy of The Order of Service for the Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, 30th January 1965.

THE familiar Art and Antiques mini-catalogues synonymous with Bonhams' regional general sales are to disappear at the end of the year.

AUCTIONEERS and trade associations sharing information on undesirable clients have to be careful that they are not breaking the law.

A MASSIVE Union Flag that flew from one of the ships at the battle of Trafalagar has sold at auction for £320,000.

NATIONAL Antiques Week runs from November 23-30, and a number of dealers have already announced events to mark the occasion.

THE original drawings that Edward Lear made for his 1846 A Book of Nonsense are now rare, and those that exist are for the most part held in institutional collections.