UK

KIDSON-Trigg (15% buyer's premium) reported a healthy turnout for their 725-lot February 26 sale with steady interest for collectable ceramics such as Beswick and the better-quality furniture attracting a mixture of local and UK private and trade buyers.

IT is always in the interest of auctioneers and the trade to talk the market up, but there does seem to be a general consensus among auctioneers that business this year so far has got off to a frisky start.

IT could have come straight out of one of the author’s own stories – a lost archive of unique material valued at two million pounds uncovered in the offices of a London law firm after being missing for decades.

ORGANISERS Brian and Anna Haughton have cancelled this summer’s London Asian Art Fair citing trade uncertainties over The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act as the reason.

WHETHER it was coincidence or whether they were reaping the benefit from their new marketing strategy, David Duggleby (15% buyer's premium) noted a definite rise in business at their 347-lot quarterly outing on February 23 when buyers were found for 85 per cent of entries.

Shown right are two highlights from the sale conducted by John Bellman (15% buyer’s premium) of Newpound, Wisborough Green, on February 18.

POLICE are warning that a thief, fitting the description of a woman who stole from London antiques shops in January, has struck again.

THE architect of the newly built British Library is to donate 600 art works collected over 50 years to the nation. Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson will hand over the gift to Pallant House Gallery in Chichester via the National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund), the UK’s leading independent art charity.

FIFTEEN or so years ago works by the likes of Helen Allingham (1848-1926) and the Stannards of Bedfordshire had the sweet smell of success all over them. However, in more recent times the general consensus is that watercolours of this genre, which I loosely describe as “roses round the cottage door”, have slipped from favour.

Welsh Ceramics in Context: Part I, edited by Jonathan Gray, published by the Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea Museum, Victoria Road, Swansea SAl lSN. ISBN 0950851752 £17.50sb. THIS well-illustrated book is based on the papers delivered to the first Welsh Ceramics in Context seminar held at Clyne Castle in 2002.

Bonham’s had no difficulty dispersing the first instalment of the mammoth collection of Worcester porcelain formed by Milton and Jeanne Zorensky, offered in their New Bond Street rooms on March 16. Just five of the 416 lots were left unsold and even these had all found buyers by the end of the day.

BUYERS may have been thin on the ground for the more routine furniture in this 712-lot Crow's, Dorking (10% buyer's premium) sale on February 25, but the four telephone lines booked for a Georgian Chippendale rectangular tilt-top occasional table ensured this would be a hotly contested entry.

ESSEX organiser Robert Bailey is not a man easily daunted, which was fortunate when a week before his Cheshire Spring Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park he was warned of major road closures for visitors using the M6 and the Manchester route M56.

FOUNDED in 1876, The Fine Art Society at 148 New Bond Street is one of London’s oldest and most innovative galleries and it has chosen a fascinating theme for its next exhibition, which opens on March 23 when the gallery gets back to business after two months renovation.

Right: this 17th century stumpwork jewellery casket will be the highlight of the first sale of antique rugs and textiles at the Netherhampton Salerooms. The auction will be put together by the team responsible for the regular specialist sales at Woolley & Wallis – the only sales of their type outside London – that ended in February.

JUST two of the 600 or so lots that made up a March 2 sale of books and prints held by John Nicholson of Fernhurst, Surrey, managed four figure bids – a binding and a postcard album.

THE large number of increasingly wealthy mainland Chinese dealers and collectors participating in UK auctions are pushing up the prices in certain sectors of the market, including 19th century Chinese-taste ceramics. In the past this area has largely been overlooked in favour of imperial porcelain from earlier periods, but with the best 18th century mark and period routinely commanding six-figure sums, 19th century ceramics must look good value for money.

Lyon & Turnbull’s 110-lot private collection did not just comprise Scottish silver, but also silver of Scottish interest. Among the more idiosyncratic elements in the catalogue was this allegorical Jacobite snuffbox, right.

ARE there any corners of Britain where the trade can enjoy an old-fashioned auction without the intrusion of confident private buyers? If so, Abergavenny is no longer one of them.

THE final 130 or so offerings in Abbotts (10% buyer's premium) 675-lot Suffolk sale on March 10 showed that good examples of standard late Georgian and Victorian furniture can still find buyers if the price is right.