Front Page and News

A Chinese blue and white vase achieved a hammer price of over £3m at an online auction that closed in Singapore last week.

The art and antiques sector could benefit from a boost by the UK government after the coronavirus pandemic when the focus shifts to growing international trade.

More previously unrecorded porcelain attributed to the John Bartlam factory of Cain Hoy, South Carolina, has emerged for sale in the UK.

International exports are predicted to return to growth following the easing of the lockdown in the UK. However, current art and antiques exports have slowed to a trickle.

A group of smuggled Mesopotamian ‘antiquities’ destined for collectors in the UK was discovered to be fake and seized by Border Force.

A long time ago, a poster costing $1.75 launched a series of films set in a galaxy far, far away. Forty-four years later, that series has become the phenomenally successful Star Wars blockbuster and a rare example of that same design sold at auction for £4000.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s have released figures to highlight how they have been able to manage the process of rapidly migrating their core business online during the coronavirus crisis.

The Paris auction centre Hôtel Drouot intends to reopen on May 25, pending “any government counter-argument”.

Bonhams has announced a revised sale schedule for May and June in the UK, US, Hong Kong and Australia.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, is consolidating its three offices into one large global headquarters to incorporate offices, salerooms and cataloguing space.

This set of nine portrait photographs of the Queen were those used to create Canadian bank notes in the 1960s.

After a month’s hiatus, a number of top-tier regional auction houses are returning to the rostrum to conduct ‘live online’ sales.

A silver penny of the boy king Edward the Martyr – the teenager who ruled Saxon Britain in the 10th century and was later venerated as a saint – has sold to a UK collector for £9000 at Dix Noonan Webb (24% buyer’s premium).

Following the success of the dedicated online sale of works from the collection of Old Masters dealer Rafael Valls, which more than tripled the high estimate to gross £1.6m (see Art Market in this issue), Sotheby’s will conduct its mid-season sale of Old Masters as an online event.

Ken tanto, distinguished by double-edged blades, are one of the rarer styles of Japanese sword. Most were made as Buddhist ritual implements rather than weapons and are decorated accordingly.

A childhood scrapbook including tales of valour written and illustrated by double Victoria Cross winner Noel Chavasse and his twin brother has been bought by their old school in Oxford. It was sold by Herefordshire militaria dealer War & Son to Magdalen College School.

HMRC has warned the art market to be on alert for money laundering attempts during the coronavirus pandemic.