News

Consignors tempted back by salerooms to sell at auction in 2017 has helped put art top of the league of investment assets, according to the latest report.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has acquired a marble sculpture of Queen Victoria by Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934) after raising the required £1.01m to prevent it from export.

Christie’s latest Impressionist & Modern auction in London drew keen bidding on certain lots as the market reacted more favourably to the works offered than at Sotheby’s sale the previous evening.

The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia opened this morning with around 150 dealers exhibiting as a large standalone section in the House & Garden Festival.

The supposed Curse of Tutankhamen has somewhat overshadowed the astonishing discoveries of Howard Carter, the British archaeologist and Egyptologist.

A blue and white porcelain dish, believed to be from the Ming period, took more than 100 times its estimate at a small auction house in North Yorkshire. It sold to a buyer from Japan, who had flown in for the sale.

A charcoal portrait by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) of the writer and Bloomsbury hostess Mary Hutchinson was knocked down at £2.6m at Sotheby’s latest Impressionist & Modern Art evening sale in London.