Leeds

For more than 10 years a banner sat stowed away in a cupboard at a little charity shop in Leeds after it was donated. Little did the staff know that one day that same once-forgotten item would sell at auction for a hammer price of £13,600.

The London dealer Godson and Coles of Fulham Road has concluded the sale of this George II period brass-inlaid mahogany metamorphic table to Temple Newsam House.

A conference on the history of UK dealers opened in Leeds yesterday with delegates hearing how the practices and identity of British antique dealers have changed during the past century.

Dr Mark Westgarth, lecturer in history of art and cultural studies at the University of Leeds, is confirmed as the keynote speaker at the upcoming Antique Dealers Project Conference, which will take place April 14-15 at Temple Newsam House, Leeds.

William Wilson’s patent for a perambulator was cheered by the infants of well-to-do-Victorians.

Leeds University launch two resources for research and study into the British art and antiques market this week.

Discovered in a pile of objects waiting to be tipped at a routine house clearance, a pair of large ceramic plaques will be offered at Gary Don in Leeds this week.

The entire contents of a West Yorkshire bookshop containing over 30,000 books are to go under the hammer with the bidding opening at just £1.

A MASSIVE Queen Anne cistern, which set a new auction high for English silver when it sold for £2.2m in 2010, is now on display at the Tudor mansion Temple Newsam in Leeds after it was acquired for the nation.

Gary Don Auctioneers of Leeds was the first subject of Keep It In The Family, a new series of four documentaries that follows a different family business with a succession dilemma each week.

Two medals awarded to the same man during the Crimean War, but separated for many years in different collections, have been reunited after selling to the same buyer at Smith & Wilde’s March 21 auction of militaria at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

After over 30 years at Hepper House, Bonhams have relocated in Leeds.

SO successful have been the three vintage fashion fairs organised by Sally Woodhead and Sam Tankard at the Queens Hotel in Leeds that they are moving to one of the city’s finest Victorian buildings, the town hall, with their first vintage fashion fair there being held on Sunday, February 4.

This Regency figured and gilded rosewood writing table with gilt brass mounts attributed to the Royal furniture-makers Morel and Hughes and once owned by former Prime Minister Earl Grey (1764-1845), has become the newest attraction on show at Temple Newsam House, Leeds.