London

LONDON: POLICE are hunting a robber who escaped with two bronzes from a Chelsea shop after a violent struggle with the dealer. The robber, who struck at the Chelminski Gallery in the King’s Road on Wednesday, May 14, is thought to be the same man who has attempted a number of similar raids at shops in the area over the past two years.

Downturn in trade blamed: The Bond Street Silver Galleries, a fixture on London’s finest antiques thoroughfare for 40 years, is to close in the autumn. The downturn in the trade for table and decorative antique silver is behind the imminent closure of the 18 strongrooms, more than half of which have been vacated in the last six months.

JUNE looms and the annual antiques season is due to get underway. Fairs are at the hub of proceedings and while Grosvenor House initiated this summer celebration of collecting and connoisseurship back in the 1930s, the latest addition to the June roster, artLONDON, has made its mark in a remarkably short time.

AS announced earlier this year, Beckenham’s own Brian Simons and Philip Thompson, who trade as DECOFAIRS, relaunch their London Art Deco Fair at the Chelsea Village Hotel, London SW6, on Sunday June 8.

A 71-lot sale devoted entirely to rock memorabilia relating to Jimi Hendrix took place on May 15 at Cooper Owen’s (15% buyer’s premium) Auction Gallery in Denmark Street, the bulk of the material coming from the collection of Bob and Kathy Levine who were part of Hendrix’s US management team.

A CHARLES II pattern crown from 1663, the Petition Crown(*), has set a new world record for English silver coins at auction.

IT IS a well-known feature of rock and pop memorabilia auctions, that material relating to the Beatles is easier to sell than that relating to other stars. On this basis, the key to assembling a sale of this genre is presumably to fill it with as much Fab Four memorabilia as possible.

THE auction record for Clarice Cliff was sent tumbling last week on May 14 when Christie’s South Kensington sold this May Avenue charger for £34,000, almost double the previous high of £18,000 paid in December 2001 at Phillips for a charger decorated with the Windmill pattern.

VERY much a rising star on the international Oriental arts scene, London specialist Ben Janssens moves into the West End next month with the opening of his own gallery right in the heart of the capital’s art dealing district.

The first, the finest, the rarest – and with an unbeatable provenance. It is not often that an auctioneer can boast this dream recipe for a lot, but Spink offer this heady mix of ingredients when they open their two-part sale of the Slaney collection on Thursday (May 15).

OUR flagship fair and one of the world’s most prestigious antiques events, the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair remains as traditional as strawberries and cream at Wimbledon and Pimms at Henley, but no one can say the most venerable of antiques events has failed to move with fashion.

FOR more than one reason, one might have expected the latest series of Islamic works of art sales in London to be a downbeat affair. Added to the prevailing economic gloom, this could surely be a sector of the market where the war in Iraq and its aftermath would have a depressive effect on prices.

COYS, the Kensington-based auctioneers of veteran, vintage and classic cars, have formed a new collectors department around two former members of the Bonhams team.

BATTERSEA dealer Robert Young, the country’s only specialist in English and European folk art, holds his fourth annual Exhibition of Antique Folk Art from May 16 to 24 at his showrooms at 68 Battersea Bridge Road, London SW11.

ALTHOUGH the London Original Print Fair has finished its four-day run on April 27, there remain a number of enticing events for print aficionados.

THE war in Iraq does not appear to have had any obvious effect on the latest series of lslamic sales, held in London last week. There was still an international turnout for the three main auctions of Islamic works of art and, in a field usually characterised by selective buying, the selling rates were not especially different, with a take-up in lot terms ranging from just over half the content at Bonhams and Christie’s King Street to just over two thirds at Sotheby’s.

Potential impact on legal trade still not clear: Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has set out a five-point plan for the future protection of cultural objects in the light of the looting in Iraq. Central to the plan is the adoption of MP Richard Allan’s Private Member’s Bill, which failed to proceed in parliament earlier this year.

ANTIQUE dealers and interior designers are to the fore in the second annual Pimlico Road Garden Week which will be held from May 19 to 24 to coincide with the nearby Chelsea Flower Show.

Back on March 18, Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) held a sale devoted entirely to Export Arts of the China Trade in their Bond Street rooms. Running to 277 lots, it comprised material from both China and Japan, the bulk of it ceramics but also featuring metalwares, ivories, furniture, paintings and other works of art.

Wimbledon-based Paola Francia-Gardiner, who operates as P&A Antiques, holds two fairs in one this weekend at the Chelsea Village Hotel in London’s Fulham Road when on Sunday April 27 the Art Deco & 20th Century Design Fair runs in tandem with the Fashion for Passion Fair.