News

More than half of the world’s leading collectors are now based in the USA, according to a survey conducted by the New York-based magazine ARTnews. The 13th annual review of the world’s most active collectors of art and antiques – assembled through interviews with dealers, auctioneers, collectors, museum directors, curators, and consultants – found that 105 of the top 200 collectors are American with eight of the top ten spenders from the world’s superpower.

The Antiques and Fine Arts Faculty at RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) have appointed a new chairman and vice chairman. Nicholas Somers, who is principal of Nicholas Somers and Company, replaces Jonathan Meyer as chairman supported by a new vice-chairman, Mark Dalrymple, managing director and proprietor of loss adjusters Tyler & Company.

DRESDEN’S Zwinger palace will enter the second phase of its renovation process in September, less than a year after the first phase culminated in the opening of the Porcelain Collection.

TO celebrate the National Art Collection Fund’s centenary, the National Film Theatre in London is to host a six-week season of films this autumn about art and artists.

Victorian painter Sophie Anderson (1823-1903), who specialised in heart-warming female figure studies, appears rather infrequently on the market, but a Hampshire religious institution furnished the Lewes branch of Gorringe’s (15% buyer’s premium) with two good quality, signed half-length female subjects in untouched condition for their June 12 picture sale.

A Rolls-Royce & Bentley sale held by Bonhams at Towcester Racecourse on June 21 included a number of sales brochures, catalogues, handbooks, manuals, etc. amongst the automobilia.

With preparations getting underway for the Nelson tricentenary celebrations in 2005, autograph collector and postal historian Gavin Littaur felt the time was right to sell an autograph letter, signed ‘Nelson & Bronte’, sent to William Churchey thanking him for his good wishes for the continuance of the peace.