Oxford

Dukes have negotiated the sale to the nation of two major Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Music by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and Hamlet and Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti were found in the Oxfordshire home of the late Jean Preston that also yielded two panels from the San Marco altarpiece by Fra Angelico sold by the Dorchester auctioneers last year for £1.7m.

After a year-long fund-raising effort, The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has just secured the future of its most impressive Chelsea porcelain exhibit.

The student section of the British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association will hold their annual conference at Oxford and Cherwell College, Oxpens Road, Oxford on March 14.

AT 10.41 on the morning of August 25, 1875, to the sounds of Rule Britannia, Captain Matthew Webb emerged from the cold and choppy waters of the Channel. It had taken him 21 hours and 41 minutes. He had covered close to 40 miles. But he had become the first man to swim from English to French soil.

WITH only eight of the 300 lots bringing four-figure sums, the Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on August 25 was a fairly sleepy summer affair by usual standards at Oxford, but there were pieces of interest throughout for budget-conscious bidders.

CHANNELLING more routine furniture through their Bicester auctions, the Oxford base of Mallams (15% buyer's premium) has been able to focus on selling more unusual, decorative and commercial entries, much to auctioneer Ben Lloyd’s satisfaction.

THE controversy over whether fox hunting should be banned may rumble on, but, presumably, even the most committed hunt saboteur could not take exception to this intriguing Victorian fantasy painting.

IT is sad to report that the Classics Bookshop in Turl Street, Oxford is soon to close due, I understand, to increases in rent required by Lincoln College. I am told that many shops in the Turl are affected.

THE rare and unusual mid-18th century mahogany Windsor chair pictured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette No 1643, June 12, was not the only enigmatic armchair in Mallams' (15% buyer's premium) April 22 sale. The supporting cast to that £23,000 chair – an unusual hybrid combining the features of the English country chair with the timber and the modeling of urban cabinetmaking – included a Egyptian Revival walnut tub chair.

JOHN Snow’s best-known work, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, deals with his investigations into the London cholera epidemic of 1831-32.

The highlight of the sale conducted by Mallams of Bocardo House, Oxford on May 26 was this rare mahogany Windsor chair (shown right) consigned for sale from a deceased estate in the Cherwell Valley of North Oxfordshire.

WITH London’s Master Drawings week looming in July, specialist dealers were predictably out in force to contest this long-lost François Boucher (1703-1770) drawing which re-emerged at the Oxford rooms of Mallams (15% buyer’s premium) on May 7.

THE unexceptional contents of a Scottish country house may have furnished Mallams (15% buyer's premium) April 28 304-lot outing with three-quarters of its entries, but it was the decorative, ornamental works from a variety of other private sources which provided many of the highlights.

OUTSTANDING single pieces may have been fairly thin on the ground in recent months at Mallams (15% buyer's premium), but a steady take-up of lots throughout the year, coupled with an increase in the volume of consignments and number of sales, meant that the Oxfordshire group as a whole posted a 24 per cent increase in turnover for the year ending March 2004.

Pictured right is a Fokker cylinder from a WWI German triplane that made £3600 at Bonhams Oxford (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of arms and militaria on April 13.

ALREADY a good day out for the public, there is increasing trade awareness of the Oxford Brocante, the third of which will be held on Sunday April 18 at the Randolph Hotel in Beaumont Street. With the emphasis very much on decorative works it also offers vintage fashion.

On a day when early pieces took the top prices at Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on March 3, one of the earliest was this late 16th century Venetian bronze inkwell, right.

There was an upbeat country house feel at Mallams’ salerooms with almost half the sale comprising the local Grove House estate of the late Mrs Graham Greene, the 98-year-old widow of the writer (Greene was, as he said, “a bad husband and a fickle lover” but although he and his wife separated in 1948 they never divorced).

Exceptional quality pictures with truly international appeal from long-standing private collections have become an all-too-rare sight in the provinces, but on October 3, thanks to significant consignments from no fewer than three deceased estates, Mallams Oxford (15% buyer’s premium) were able to offer at least half a dozen lots that wouldn’t have looked out of place at any of the world’s most expensive art fairs.

OXFORD’S Ashmolean Museum has made an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for £23m for a major redevelopment of the building. The new proposals for Europe’s oldest museum include a dedicated education centre, 100 per cent more display space and state-of-the-art environmental control.