News

A SERIES of guidelines designed to encourage standard and proper practice in the fine art auction industry in China were unveiled on June 31. They are the first measures of their type since sales by auction were permitted to resume in the People’s Republic 23 years ago.

HAD it not been for the headline-grabbing and record-breaking J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the latest Old Master auctions in London would have seemed a bit flat.

THE Lyon & Turnbull sale at Edinburgh got off to a splendid start when Lot 1, a Worcester porcelain plate from the Duke of Gloucester service, c.1770, sold at £12,000.

EXTENDING the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) to the estates of dead artists after 2012 poses a serious threat to the 60,000 jobs the UK art industry supports. That is the view of the view of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF), which is calling on Brussels to delay the move and allow all member states to adopt the derogation until ARR is accepted globally.

KEY to BAMF’s cause is the European Commission’s (EC) failure to follow the terms of its own Directive.

THE latest Contemporary art sales in London were a little flatter than expected, but Modern British art generated a batch of stand-out prices.

TO many people, Geoffrey Godden is indivisible from English porcelain. The scholar and author is a name on every ceramic enthusiast’s bookshelves through the many books on English ceramics written during the course of his 60 years of collecting and study.