UK

WITH the new auction season getting underway, the London houses have been rushing to announce their star lots as the treasures from aristocratic collections continue to emerge in the saleroom.

AUCTIONEERS Bonhams and Irish saleroom Adam’s have decided to end their 12-year arrangement of holding joint sales in Dublin.

LONDON-based Russian art specialists MacDougall’s have appointed three people to establish an Old Masters and 19th century European art department.

An independent report has confirmed that antiques are environmentally friendly with a piece of antique furniture likely to have a carbon footprint 16 times lower than that of a newly manufactured item.

THIS 8½in (21cm) English porcelain jug painted with a cavalryman on horseback probably dates from c.1817 when, following rioting in the spring, magistrates in Manchester decided to form the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry.

A COLLECTION of Augustus John drawings, consigned by the family of Dame Elizabeth Taylor, will be sold by a West London auction house on September 28.

PIERS Motley has taken over the Bicton Street Auction Rooms in Exmouth from Martin Spencer-Thomas who has retired after 25 years as an auctioneer and valuer in Devon.

TECHNOLOGY is increasingly important in the art market but a pair of oils by the Anglo-Australian artist William Blamire Young (1862-1935), is believed to be the first significant work identified and consigned to auction through Christie’s iPhone application.

Special Auction Services (SAS), founded in 1991, is moving to larger premises in October. Currently based in Kennetholme, Midgham, near Reading they are relocating six miles away to New Greenham Park, Newbury.

THIEVES have stolen a safe containing £25,000 worth of silver from a church in Woodmangreen, just north of Midhurst, Sussex.

THE five City of London livery companies with particular connections with wood (Carpenters, Furniture-Makers, Joiners, Turners and Upholders) are currently raising funds for the Arboretum Trust with a charity auction titled Branching Out.

CHISWICK Auctions are set to sell one of the most important early paintings by the German Expressionist Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966) to have come to market in recent years.

A UNIQUE archive of original Enid Blyton material is being offered for sale by her elder daughter's estate at Ilkley auctioneers Hartley's on September 15.

IT looks like a flying saucer, and to those viewing it on the monastery wall in Verona where it had hung since the Middle Ages, it can have had hardly less of an impact.

PURITAN spoons are not uncommon survivors in English silver but, for reasons still largely unknown, Scottish examples are very rare. To date, only nine hallmarked or provincial examples are known.

THE trial of a man accused of the burglary of a number of remote country houses in East Anglia has begun in Ipswich Crown Court.

INTERNATIONAL Antiques & Collectors Fairs Ltd (IACF) plan to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their flagship event, the Newark International Antiques & Collectors Fair, in October.

FOUR sketches by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, found tucked inside covers of Led Zeppelin LPs, have been withdrawn from sale at Chilcotts auctioneers in Tiverton, Devon, because of a “misunderstanding over ownership” according to the auctioneers.

ON Wednesday, September 8, Kent auctioneers Ibbett Mosely will hold their first sale in new premises at 125 High Street, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1UT.

THIS 20in (50cm) high gilt and clear glass vase of Islamic inspiration is the central element of the three-piece garniture discovered by Rayleigh, Essex auctioneers Staceys in a home near Southend-on-Sea.