People

HENRY Sandon, the acknowledged leading authority on Worcester porcelain, has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London. The ceremony took place at the Guildhall on February 28, where Mr Sandon then gave the annual Ravenscroft lecture at Glaziers Hall SE1, an event staged by the Glass-Sellers’ Company.

ALONGSIDE, Tom Jones, Bruce Forsyth and the Ashes winning cricket team, the New Year’s honours list featured Richard Dennis.

Plans to rejuvenate firm include big stand at Olympia

Charles Hanson, formerly of Wintertons, launches his own auction business next month.

The recent arrest of Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar appears to mark the end of a remarkable one-man, eight-year spending spree in the global art market.

A LEADING figure in the world of heritage is calling for a change in the export licence rules – after the decision to keep a valuable work of art in the UK.

LAPADA will return to The Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse for their 2005 Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair following last month’s inaugural event there. It will again be organised by Ingrid Nilson.

SIR Nicholas Goodison is the winner of the first CINOA Prize, a new award devised by the international confederation of associations of art and antiques dealers.

NICK Bonham has quit the board of Bonhams after working for the firm for 38 years.

TIMES may be tough at fairs, but that does not stop organisers launching new ones, nor dealers giving them a go.

PABLO Picasso’s Garçon à la pipe boosted Sotheby’s second quarter sales considerably, alone accounting for about 9.5 per cent of the total.

WEST Country-based organiser Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs is having a busy summer, even if her last couple of fairs, the first Oxford County Antiques Fair and the established North Cotswolds Antiques and Decorative Fair, were quieter than she would have liked.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

DESPITE the myriad complaints that there are too many fairs, still they keep coming, and here is another. From May 7 to 9 Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs launches her Oxford County Antiques Fair at Eynsham Hall, an 18th century Grade 11 listed manor house in 30 acres of parkland near Woodstock.

FLUSHED with the successful launch in early February of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs moves north this weekend to her established Cheshire County Antiques Fair, which will be held at Arley Hall, near Knutsford from March 12 to 14.

LAPADA have named their new chief executive as Sarah Harvey, a former auctioneer at both Phillips and Sotheby’s. She will take up her post on March 29.

Choosing to concentrate upon their auction business, Sotheby’s Holdings, Inc., have sold their real estate brokerage operations to Cendant Corporation. The total cash purchase price for the luxury brand and a 100-year licensing agreement was approximately $100m, plus ongoing fees based on future royalties from the development of a franchise business planned under the Sotheby's International Realty name.

Local trade fare particularly well at Powderham: TWO weeks ago, when Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs promised her new West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, would be “an antiques event of a quality not seen before in the West Country”, I must admit I thought that a very bold claim indeed.

ORGANISER Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs is promising “an antiques event of a quality not seen before in the West Country” with this weekend’s launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter. It seems a bold claim but, on reflection, there have not been that many successful quality fairs in the West Country so Mrs Ede may well be on safe ground.

Luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault finally abandoned his attempt to compete with Christie’s and Sotheby’s at the top end of the art market last week when he sold his remaining 27.5 per cent stake in troubled auction house Phillips to its joint chief executives Simon de Pury and Daniella Luxembourg.