London

The Metropolitan Police are investigating claims of a £3m theft from art fair Masterpiece London.

A locket given to George IV’s true love was hammered down at £280,000 yesterday at Christie’s, more than doubling its high estimate.

Francesco Guardi’s (1712-93) 'The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi' led Christie’s latest evening sale of Old Masters in London. It was knocked down at £23.25m following a competition between two phone bidders.

A Cork Street gallery has become the first in the UK to accept digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

In a lively evening sale of Old Masters at Sotheby’s, one of the few large-scale oil paintings by JMW Turner (1775-1851) left in private hands was knocked down at £17m.

A long-running appeal to raise nearly half a million pounds to return a Wedgwood’s First Day’s vase to Staffordshire has triumphed.

The Goldsmiths’ Company has pledged £10m to help fund the creation of a new home for The Museum of London.

One of the leading lots at this week’s Old Master auctions in London is a JMW Turner (1775-1851) that Sotheby’s predicts could make a record for a British-born artist.

An action group that campaigns for the protection of elephants staged a protest against the trade in antique ivory outside Art & Antiques Fair Olympia, on Saturday afternoon (July 1).

The Holey Grail of the Australian coins world… hang on, we used that pun in a 2013 ATG story. Nevertheless, it is Holey appropriate:  the Holey Dollar remains a must-have for collectors of Australian coins.

The popular image of Queen Victoria in the latter days is of a sombre, dressed in mourning black, unsmiling monarch who was definitely not amused. However, an intriguing item coming up at auction shows her compassionate, caring side.