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COMMENT: More than 60,000 visitors on a summer Saturday, one of the most popular tourist spots in the UK, a name so recognised internationally that the local council wants to brand a Crossrail station after it... there are plenty of reasons to protect Portobello‘s antiques trade.

Sotheby’s latest sale of European Paintings in London proved a seminal event for the work of Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) as five paintings by the Danish painter topped the sale, led by a record price at auction for both the artist and any Danish work of art.

If you thought the sometimes dark art of auction marketing was a new phenomenon, think again. A revealing snapshot of the business from two centuries ago was provided by a rare piece of auction ephemera sold for £300 at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cheltenham on May 1.

Antiques Roadshow and Midlands auction house Gildings have conspired again to find a second William Burges brooch.

The annual Salvo Fair at Knebworth has been bounced off its long-established spot at the Hertfordshire estate this year by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in concert. So organisers Thornton Kay and his daughter Ruby Hazael have moved their three-day show to the Stubbings Estate, just off the M4 at Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire.

Close to 800 postcards in the Artist’s Resale Right campaign have already arrived at the Department of Culture, with more on the way.

The dreaded experience of the inexperienced gallery-goer: having mustered the courage to ring the buzzer on the door, you’re greeted by a deathly silence as you nervously look at the works under the hawk-like gaze of a dealer. No prices and you’re too scared to ask. This is exactly the kind of image that the organisers of Master Paintings Week and Master Drawings London are trying to combat.