News topics

THE latest imports and exports figures have shown a major recovery in the value of art and antiques traded annually between the UK and overseas.

A SET of four George II silver salts by the celebrated Huguenot silversmith Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) sold for a double-estimate £19,000 at Hansons' latest sale at the Mackworth Hotel in Derby.

CHRISTIE’S chief operating officer, Lisa King, has resigned from the firm after only a year in her new role.

CHURCHILL impersonator Derek Herbert was in Towcester on March 16 to aid Northamptonshire auctioneer Jonathan Humbert in the sale of a pair of acetate tortoiseshell-effect reading glasses that belonged to Sir Winston.

A NEW auction house based at the Silverstone race track opened for business in February.

DETERMINING whether something is an artwork or not is at the centre of an appeal to the UK Supreme Court in a copyright dispute between Star Wars producer George Lucas and one of his former prop makers.

CUSTOMS & Excise (HMRC) have launched a new guide through Business Link to advise small businesses on the records they are obliged to keep.

ON the evening of Tuesday, March 1 thieves broke into Willingham Auctions and stole four fruit-decorated Royal Worcester vases.

AFTER 26 years working with Martel Maides, Norman Wilkinson has established his own firm of Channel Islands Auctions Ltd.

A PICTURE discovered in a Suffolk village has sold for Aus$132,000 (£85,715) in Bonhams' saleroom in Sydney, Australia.

CHINA has pushed the United Kingdom into third place as a player in the world art market and is now second only to the United States.

SOUTH Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961 brought with it hefty import taxes on finished luxury goods: a difficult moment for Meccano, for whom the colonies were key markets.

ART and antiques could be one of the few winners in a UK government review to tighten up and streamline tax-relief rules.

THE saga of the portrait sold by Christie’s in 1998 as ‘19th century German’, but now claimed as a long-lost work by Leonardo da Vinci, has taken a new turn following the dismissal of the complaint against Christie’s lodged by the work’s consignor.

CONSOLIDATED annual sales at Sotheby’s were up 74% to £3.17bn ($4.8bn), including buyer’s premium, putting the firm marginally behind Christie’s, who posted results of £3.3bn ($5bn) last month.

BRITAIN'S smaller regional auctioneers continue to enjoy major prices for Chinese works of art. This mark and period Qianlong (1736-96) doucai jardinière, 9in (23cm) high, achieved a house record for Douglas auctioneers Murrays (incorporating Chrystals) at their latest sale.

THE Greek courts have commuted the sentence of antiquities dealer Malcolm Hay from four years to three, suspended for three years.

ALBRECHT Dürer may not be the name most people would think of as producing the earliest printed star charts, but his will be the name that counts when Sotheby's offer a very rare pair of charts in a March 30 print sale.

FORMER Scotland Yard Art & Antiques Squad detective Vernon Rapley is one of two speakers at a lecture on art crime at the Royal Geographical Society on April 5.

THIS marble portrait bust of Ann Borrett by the 18th century sculptor Henry Cheere was stolen from the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shoreham, Kent at the end of January.