Front Page and News

A missing Martinware bird has been recovered more than 15 years after it was stolen from Southall Library in Ealing, west London.

David Sear, author of Roman Coins and their Values, called it “among the most exciting numismatic discoveries of the 21st century, if not of all time”.

Sworders is offering an oil sketch of the Suffolk countryside by John Constable (1776-1837) which was previously dismissed as a copy by a leading London auction house.

Event organiser IACF has scheduled new dates for the next Newark Antiques and Collectors’ Market. It will now take place on Thursday-Friday, December 10-11 (moved back one week from December 3-4).

A Lalique glass, enamel and diamond bracelet, brooch and earring suite was sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) for the first time since it was bought by the Edwardian heiress Florence Evelyn St George (1870-1936).

Exceptional examples of the glyphic arts – the apotheosis of jewellery collecting during the Grand Tour era – are rising high in the saleroom once more.

Ottoman bead carvers in Istanbul – makers of the garlands of beads known as tesbih and komboloi – were swift to appreciate the potential of Bakelite in c.1910.

Auction houses Bonhams and Phillips have both increased their buyer's premium.

A group of dealers have committed to new shops in London’s West End, in a clear sign the art and antiques market believes that retail in central London has a future after the coronavirus pandemic.

Roma Numismatics set a new record for a classical coin when a Brutus Eid Mar-type gold aureus, struck shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar, took £2.7m in London.

The record for a British coin sold at auction has been broken twice at a sale in Monte Carlo.

Lots of souvenirs were produced referencing the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746 – the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the last pitched battle fought on British soil.

Art and antiques businesses in England are more prepared for trading through this new lockdown having gained experience last time around.

In 1793, well in advance of the Slave Trade Act (1807) and the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), 275 British men, women and children attempted to settle an uninhabited island off the coast of Sierra Leone.

The last known drawn self-portrait of Modern British artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) has been acquired by the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham.

Christie’s has axed its stand-alone sales of topographical pictures and will incorporate the specialist department into the 19th century picture department based in London. Consignments in this area will now be offered in auctions in the wider category.

Fat Sod, Skinhead, Colin the Amiable Crocodile and Victor Pratt the Stupid Twat were introduced to the public in the form of a comic offered in a Newcastle pub in December 1979. Forty-one years later that comic is still going strong: Viz.

Paris auction centre Hôtel Drouot has been forced to close its premises after French president Emmanuel Macron announced a second national lockdown.

The latest evening sales of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary art held at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9 buyer’s premium + 1% overhead premium) in New York produced very high-selling rates but they were somewhat slimmer affairs than the normal run of sales in this category.

A First World War ‘dead man’s penny’ memorial plaque awarded to a soldier believed to be the first black officer commissioned into a British army regiment during the conf lict and the first black officer casualty is coming up at auction.