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UK: A RARE catch indeed, the most important painting of its period in a British private collection, Botticelli’s Virgin Adoring the Christ Child, c.1490-1500, pictured right, has been acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland from the 10th Earl of Wemyss and March, who was about to sell it to America.

UK: AN international mix of private collectors, dealers and institutions turned out to bid for an old and celebrated collection of European glass formed by the late Dr. Otto Dettmers of Bremen when it went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London last week on November 23.

UK: PHOTOGRAPHIC proof of provenance lends enormous wings to the object concerned, and lot 1 at Phillips’ (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of English and Continental furniture in London on October 12 was just such a case.

UK: IT MAY have been a mahogany wine cooler, but did its massive proportions and one-time residence in St Alban’s Cathedral suggest that it had formerly been used as a christening bath for babies rather than for beverages?

UK: CAMPAIGNERS want all dealers across the country to act now against the proposed Kent County Council Bill which could tie the trade up in red tape and discourage buyers.

FRANCE: PIERRE Lellouche, député (MP) for the Drouot district of Paris, has called for the suppression of import VAT on art and a large cut in the rate of droit de suite, the artists’ resale levy.

UK: EXAMPLES of the laminated-birch long chair designed by Marcel Breuer for the Isokon Furniture Company in 1936 have become a fairly common sight at London sales of modern design icons but are perhaps less familiar in the provinces.

CHRISTIE'S International has had a radical rethink of its Internet strategy, disbanding its Internet Auctions division, which it created in May as a separate entity, and shelving plans to sell online.

UK: THE LINK between the woven silk portrait illustrated right and the modern world of computing may not be instantly apparent, but this 6in x 4in (16 x 11cm) silk panel, albeit a curiosity rather than a key scientific document, had a successful part to play in the Weinreb Computer Collection, which was sold by Bloomsbury Book Auctions in London on October 28.

US: THE MARKET for Impressionist and Modern art saw further consolidation last week when Sotheby’s and Christie’s turned over a premium inclusive $466m (£289.5m) for their November sales of works by the world’s most expensive artists.

LAUNCHED this week on the internet Worldbookdealers.com is a new concept in buying rare books and has the backing of many of the world’s top antiquarian booksellers.

UK: TWO from a set of five Chippendale mahogany dining chairs sold for £120,000 (plus 15 per cent premium) as part of the sale of objects from Hever Castle, Kent conducted ‘on the premises’ by Weller King on November 9.

UK: DELAYED news from tools specialist auctioneers David Stanley Auctions (buyer’s premium 10 per cent) focuses on this rare coach builder’s plough or grooving plane, right, constructed in ebony, brass and steel and probably made by Thomas Falconer around c.1840.

UK: A PERMANENT exhibition space for objects from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is to be part of the continuing development of London’s Somerset House as an arts complex.

UK: THE unknown British soldier who embroidered the crude depiction of his lonely blockhouse on the South African veld almost a century ago, could hardly have expected his work to end up on the hallowed walls of the National Army Museum in Chelsea, having provoked intense competition from international bidders at Bosley’s auction of militaria in Marlow on October 12.

UK: A heart-shaped London delft pill slab of c.1660-70, 12 x 10in (30 x 25cm), painted in blue, ochre and turquoise with the arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

UK: THERE remains some serious money available for the rarest of the Royal Doulton HN series figures as was seen at this Lincolnshire sale when one of the first of the Harry Nixon series was offered.

Phillips were making no comment last week following confident assertions in the Financial Times that a French takeover of the last of the top three auctioneers under UK ownership was imminent.

UK: AS yet there are no signs that game fishing is to become an endangered sport to follow hunting and shooting, not that the market for angling collectables is floundering on the bank of public indifference.

UK: ABOUT 30 years ago a local private lady purchased this 5.2in (13cm) high Charles II flat-lidded silver tankard, pictured right, for £6 at a Cumbrian jumble sale: a generation later, having realised its potential worth, she decided to place the vessel into the hands of the Cumbrian auctioneers Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd’s (10 per cent buyer’s premium) for their sale on September 29.