London

Rocketing business rates and the impact of building works for Crossrail are to force the closure of Grays Mews.

The number of art dealers specialising in modern and contemporary art in central London is growing, and outstripping dealers in period work.

Last offered at auction at Parke-Bernet in New York in 1945, as part of the famed Bronson Winthrop collection, a drawing made by John Tenniel for Alice through the Looking-Glass made $16,000 (£12,600) at Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on June 13 – though the saleroom had hoped it might make twice that sum.

London’s summer season was in full swing last week with major fairs, auctions and the start of London Art Week and Mayfair Art Weekend. We enjoyed seeing many great objects, though a pair of broken mirrors by installation artist Jim Hodges at Sotheby’s did not impress everyone…

David Newell-Smith, who together with wife Sonya ran the Tadema Gallery in Camden Passage, died on June 11.

A set of four silver-gilt candlesticks priced at £350,000 by Koopman Rare Art, were among the top sales on the opening day of Masterpiece London last week.

'Tres Thomae…', by Thomas Stapleton, a leading Catholic theologian, is a set of three biographies of saints who shared his own first name. An exile from England, Stapleton was Professor of Theology at Douai at the time and his book was published there.

Painter who fled London to create country scenes is now the subject of a Holborn show...

Robert Young, the folk art dealer in Battersea, London, has launched an initiative which showcases the work of emerging contemporary artists and designers in his shop.

A London street view by the northern English artist Harry Rutherford (1903-85) led the sale at Chiswick Auctions (22% buyer’s premium) on June 13.

Indian design was a prolific influence in Carlo Giuliano’s style. Already seen at the 1851 Great Exhibition, interest in technicolour jewellery from the sub-continent rose to new levels when Victoria became Empress of India in 1876.

Whitford Fine Art’s ongoing exhibition Trans-Channel Crossing brings together works by four artists, two from the UK and two from Continental Europe, who lived and worked in both places after the Second World War.

Browse & Darby’s ongoing exhibition of British and French drawings, prints and sculpture includes Edgar Degas’ c.1987 Danseuse Assise, a pastel and charcoal on paper mounted on card.

Bonhams’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale in Knightsbridge on June 14 included a group of pieces attributed to the British Arts & Crafts jeweller and designer Dorrie Nossiter (1893-1977).

Stealing all the headlines at Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) Fine Jewels sale in London on June 7 was the £540,000, 26ct ’tenner’ diamond, bought by the vendor at a boot fair in the 1980s. However, among the 370 lots were items with more illustrious provenances.