UK

THE ‘LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair Berkeley Square’ (September 19-23) may have a great Mayfair location but, since its launch in 2009, it has struggled with how to fit the 90-odd exhibitors into a marquee within the tight confines of the site.

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.

WHEN the Royal Navy seized an enemy patrol boat in the Falklands War the name of it must have given particular satisfaction at the capture.

A wartime lithograph by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946) promoting Britain’s aerial prowess made a record price for a print by the artist at Sotheby’s latest sale in this category.

A DEVON auctioneer has issued a warning after seeing off fraudsters who tried to con him out of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and silver through phone bids.

AUCTIONEER Martin Lawrence of Petersfield firm Jacobs & Hunt was not expecting much when asked to conduct a probate valuation in a top-floor council flat in a rundown part of Southsea.

A REMARKABLE Chelsea porcelain bust with the potential to establish a new record for English porcelain will be offered for sale by Bonhams on April 18.

IT survived the Reformation and had been buried in a churchyard for safekeeping before being rediscovered nearly 200 years ago, but this ‘very rare’ medieval reredos panel has now fallen victim to thieves.

WITH their move to new premises, Mallett have announced a profit for the first time in four years.

AFTER 2010 saw the London market grow by a third it would have been a bold commentator to predict a further substantial rise in 2011. Nonetheless, coins and medals auctions in the capital saw totals rise by almost a quarter on the previous year.

The 20th BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair opened on March 21 in the Duke of York Square in Chelsea and was once again greeted by spring sunshine.

FOUR people will appear in court next month in connection with a series of frauds involving foreign-based credit cards used to pay for high-value jewellery at a number of auction houses.

A RUGBY-tackling mystery hero and a life-size pottery Great Dane helped scupper a daylight smash-and-grab raid targeting a rhino horn libation cup.

THE Great Bed of Ware is to be loaned by the V&A, for the first time since its acquisition in 1931, to the Ware Museum.

“THERE shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of ale and one measure of corn – namely, the London quart.”

THE first sale at new premises for Ipswich auctioneers Lockdales, now at the former officers’ barracks in Martlesham Heath, included two pieces of silver and enamel ware of the type associated with the Solvychegodsk region.

GRAY’S dealers hoping for some let-up in the disruption to the surrounding area have learnt that Crossrail have applied for the continued closure of the street that runs parallel to the central London antiques centre.

TV presenters and antiques champions Kirstie Allsopp and Mark Hill announced the winners of the inaugural Britain’s Best Antiques Shops Awards at the Bath Decorative & Antiques Fair on March 8.

THE vital part trade has played in the history of collecting is the theme of a two-day conference at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford on June 15 and 16.

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.