London

Having dispersed the collection of Sir John Gielgud early last month Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) went on to offer that of his good friend, fellow thespian and fellow knight of the realm, the late Sir Ralph Richardson, on April 27.

UK: Preliminary proceedings have begun at the High Court in a £100m claim by the estate of Francis Bacon against Marlborough Fine Art (London) and Lichtenstein-registered Marlborough International Fine Art. The estate claims the galleries were in breach of fiduciary duty and exerted “undue influence” in their dealings with the artist.

UK: An ancient Celtic gold ornament provided the high point of Christie’s South Kensington’s Antiquities sale last week when it was purchased for £1m by London’s British Museum, to whom it was on loan from 1993 to 2000.

UK: This elegant 4ft 3in (1.3m) wide early Georgian mahogany two-door commode stole the show at Phillips’ furniture sale in London on Tuesday, April 24, when it sold for £500,000 to London dealers Jeremy Ltd.

UK: A key feature of the Bloomsbury Book Auctions sale of April 5 was a private collection of the works of A.A. Milne.

Letters, manuscripts and photographs from many of Britain’s most celebrated artists are to form a new art research library that will be open to the public at Tate Britain.

Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, by Amin Jaffer

UK: THE V&A have announced that they are to open their new British Galleries 1500-1900 on November 22.

UK: NINETEENTH century genre paintings with strong narrative and moralising elements have not been the strongest performers at auction in recent years.

UK: MARCH was a busy month in London and successful with it. On the 15th, Spink (15 per cent buyer’s premium) sold the definitive collection of Tudor silver coins formed over several decades by Roger Shuttlewood.

UK: A CHANNEL Islands collection formed by Sir Martin Le Quesne occupied the first 108 lots of the catalogue issued by Bloomsbury Book Auctions for their March 15 sale.

In a Bloomsbury Book Auctions sale reported earlier (Antiques Trade Gazette No. 1485, April 21, 2001) I mentioned a bid of £2800 on a 1930 (German text) Cranach Press edition of Hamlet, but at Sotheby’s on April 5, as part of the John Gielgud Collection, a copy of the English text version made very much more than that.

UK: ARTS Minister Alan Howarth has become increasingly active in placing temporary bans on the export of works of art

UK: A NEWLY established firm of provincial auctioneers are broadening the scope of their business by launching a two-day ceramics fair in London in June.

UK: BY the time you read this, the Kent and Medway Bills should have passed into law, with Royal Assent being given on Tuesday, April 10, although there will be a six-month delay until it can be enforced.

Toy soldiers and figures There was a larger than usual civilian element to the latest sale of toy soldiers and figures, held by Christie’s South Kensington on March 30.

Timothy Sheldrake’s ... Herbal of Medicinal Plants is often found without a title and with fewer than the 118 plates by C.H. Emmerich after Sheldrake called for, but they have great appeal and the Phillips copy, a first issue of c.1759 with 111 coloured plates, made £5500 at Bonhams.

UK: NOTED for its wide variety of stock, there truly is something for everyone at all prices at the Summer Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which will be held at Olympia in West London from June 7 to 17.

The Scillies in one of 49 engraved charts from a 1753 first edition of Greenville Collins’ Great-Britain’s Coasting Pilot... which made £4000 at Bonhams.

Showing the Terra Nova at Cape Evans, this large, green toned carbon print is an example of the largest format photographs offered by the Fine Art Society in their 1913-14 exhibition of photographs taken by Herbert Ponting on Scott’s last expedition (this one measuring 2ft 6in x 23in – 75 x 58cm) and it sold for £5000 (Grigor Taylor) in the Bonhams Knightsbridge sale.