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Fontainebleau auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat, 57, has replaced ArtCurial’s Hervé Poulain as head of France’s auctioneers’ association, the Syndicat National des Maisons de Ventes Volontaires (SYMEV).

Bonhams weren’t the only London salerooms to be offering a good selection of antique glasswares. On October 9, just a week after the Harvey’s dispersal, Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% per cent buyer’s premium) had a mixed-owner 280-lot selection of British and Continental glass to offer as part of their monthly At Home series.

AXA Art are holding a one-day seminar on protecting and conserving art on October 28 at the Royal Society of Arts, London. Before Art Falls Apart: Achieving Consensus on Care, Protection and Value will look at the changing role of dealers, curators, collectors, legal and academic experts, brokers and insurers in this field.

Sad news. The drunken rats and the two-faced lamb have finally parted company.

Exceptional quality pictures with truly international appeal from long-standing private collections have become an all-too-rare sight in the provinces, but on October 3, thanks to significant consignments from no fewer than three deceased estates, Mallams Oxford (15% buyer’s premium) were able to offer at least half a dozen lots that wouldn’t have looked out of place at any of the world’s most expensive art fairs.

AUSTRALIA: Today there is no love lost in any Ashes series between England and Australia. It is a hard-fought duel which engenders at best a grudging respect, but a silver presentation tray which will be offered by the Australian auctioneers Lawson Menzies on October 19 is a reminder that the original Ashes series was played in a rather more convivial spirit and ended in a true love match.

CLOSING this Saturday (October 18) and not to be missed, is an exhibition of photographs by Michael Cooper at the Atlas Gallery, 49 Dorset Street, London W1. One of the great archives of 1960s photography, this show has prompted the Independent on Sunday to brand the snapper as “The Swinging Sixties’ poet of the lens”. Lennon, Magritte, Warhol, Burroughs, the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, and Hockney are all featured among the 37 photos priced from £800 to £6000.

A PORTISHEAD parent proved no dummy when he unearthed two Regency library globes at his child’s school. The unusually large globes, by renowned London maker Cary, were discovered under the floorboards of local Bristol school, Portishead Primary, and went on to form the stellar entry in this 396-lot collectors sale.

While the original Friendly Society was a successful London fire insurance association, the name was adopted throughout 18th and 19th century Britain to describe every kind of mutual aid organisation.

High quality mahogany carcase furniture continues to transcend any malaise experienced at other levels of the furniture market. The final lot of a small but nicely formed sale conducted by Finan & Co. at the Old Ship Hotel in Mere, Wiltshire on October 4 was this fretwork and blind fret decorated Chippendale-style and period mahogany library bookcase.

WITH a £120,000 total from some 500 lots catering for most areas of antiques, the September 18 sale held by Douglas Ross (15% buyer’s premium) at Woburn was a sound, if unspectacular, start to the autumn season for the Bedfordshire rooms.

Exceptional subjects still have the capacity to fetch exceptional prices, as the Bury St Edmunds auctioneers Lacy Scott & Knight (10% buyer’s premium) discovered when this unsigned and unattributed 19th century watercolour came under the hammer on September 20 with an estimate of £250-400.

First introduced c.1809, the ‘Caramanian’ series represent one of Spode’s most popular early 19th century pattern ranges.

A NEW company aiming to capture a market that even the top firms have failed to corner – selling high end art and antiques online – are trying a fresh approach. iGavel are headed by Vancouver-based Lark E. Mason, Jr, a 24-year veteran employee of Sotheby’s whose last role was director of online auctions for sothebys.com.

THE Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors have launched a Business Rates helpline which offers free advice to businesses across the UK. There is also a new, easy to understand leaflet available by calling the same number – 0870 333 1600.

THE Wallace Collection have gone into partnership with French art training provider IESA to develop a postgraduate diploma in the History and Business of Art and Collecting.

AMONG the London salerooms offering a good selection of antique glasswares in the last fortnight, Christie’s South Kensington had a mixed-owner 280-lot selection of British and Continental glass to offer as part of their monthly ‘At Home’ series.

In terms of collecting focus, much of the pre-sale attention for the Harvey’s Wine Museum sale at Bonhams centred on the October 1 glass and ceramics auction.

If antique glass was the focal point of the celebrated Harvey’s Wine Museum collection, sold in three parts by Bonhams in the last month, then the first purchase for the fledgling museum in the mid 1950s had been the Pratt collection of silver wine labels.

According to Themes & Variations, the West London dealers in 20th century decorative arts and contemporary design, for the past three decades minimalism has developed alongside a taste for baroque extravagance, but without converging.