News topics

This week’s quotes roundup crosses international boundaries and maps a route through the Hundred Acre Wood. From auction records to digitised export licences we bring you our selection of stand-out quotes from dealers, auctioneers and other members of the trade.

US West Coast auction firm PBA Galleries is holding its first sale dedicated to writing instruments in its San Francisco rooms on July 19.

Watercolours and drawings from the personal collection of artist Sir Quentin Blake (b. 1932) have been sold at Christie’s for over £750,000.

The 10th anniversary staging of the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair takes place in September featuring 100 exhibitors and a new fair manager.

A Washington DC appeals court has upheld a decision to allow a ‘Nazi forced sale’ claim against a spectacular collection of medieval devotional art to go to trial in the US.

The cost of smoking is going crazy – someone has just paid £29,000 for a packet of cigarettes in the West Midlands.

Reporter: “Well John, how was the trip over, did you all get bored on the flight, or did you have things to keep you entertained, that y’all were doing?” John Lennon: ‘Well, err, we all got stoned.”

New culture minister Jeremy Wright, appointed this week after a Cabinet reshuffle prompted by the resignation of David Davis and Boris Johnson, is being asked to prioritise the introduction of digital export licences for art works in time for Brexit.

A rediscovered landscape attributed to Lucian Freud, found under another painting, has sold at a top-estimate £30,000 at the Sworders saleroom.

The Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) has released details of the 40th Annual Conference on Book Trade History.

The dates of the Cotswolds Art & Antiques Dealers’ Association Fair has been moved from its usual April slot to take place in February next year.

The original drawing of the map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood by EH Shepard has been sold for a hammer price of £350,000, setting an auction record for a book illustration.

The former Christie’s chairman and the last surviving member of Sir Winston Churchill's post-war government, Lord Carrington, has died aged 99.

The Elgar Foundation is calling for the return of a draft score of the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar shown on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.

Prince Harry has bought a first edition Winnie the Pooh from antiquarian book dealer Peter Harrington for his nephew Louis.

The Winter Art and Antiques Fair at Olympia needs an additional dose of dealer commitment as the deadline to save the event approaches.

For the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, a call has gone out for artists to apply for a residency at West Dean College of Arts and Conservation in West Sussex, leading to a solo exhibition in the De La Warr Pavilion’s gallery next year.