News

This portrait miniature of a 30-year-old lady by Nicholas Hilliard, dated 1582, set a new auction record for the artist at Sotheby’s Olympia rooms on June 6 when it sold to a private collector bidding on the phone against the room for £200,000 (plus premium).

THE National Library of Ireland has acquired a sprawling collection of manuscripts by James Joyce, which remained hidden for nearly 60 years after being concealed from the Nazis.They include a total of some 700 pages in six notebooks, 16 drafts from Ulysses and typescripts and proofs of Finnegans Wake.

THE head of one of the United States’ biggest industrial conglomerates has quit the company after being indicted on charges of sales tax evasion on paintings valued at $13m.

VALUE investor Jack Petchey has taken just under a 20 per cent stake in Mayfair dealers Mallett. He acquired the 2.66m shares, representing a 19.28 per cent stake in the company, at a price of £2.10 a share, from Merrill Lynch, on May 30.

A VENDOR has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 legal costs after a picture he sold at auction proved not to be by the famous German artist to whom it was attributed.

ALFRED Taubman, who has just announced an appeal against his collusion conviction, has started the ball rolling in his bid to sell his controlling stake in Sotheby’s.

THE value of the UK’s international trade in art and antiques rose for the fifth year running during 2001. Total exports were down by 4.75 per cent to £1884m, but this was more than matched by a 13.5 per cent rise in total imports which were valued at £1623m.