News

UK: ILLUSTRATED on the front page of last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette was one of of 79 coloured litho plates by Smit and Keulemans after the original charcoal drawings by Joseph Wolf, the brilliant ornithological artist to whose “unrivalled talent” Daniel Giraud Eliot dedicated his two volume Monograph of the Phasianidae, or Family of the Pheasants of 1870-72.

NEW regulations intended to ban the import of looted archaeological items from Italy into the USA are likely to increase the burden of documentation on antiquities dealers.

LONDON: DESPITE there being no official announcement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the papers have been full of the news that Mark Jones is to be the new director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

FRANCE: Three French museums have become embroiled in legal controversy after harbouring works of art looted from their original owners during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War.

UK: THE double January offering of two-day 1300-lot auctions at the Norfolk auctioneers followed the usual house pattern of a high volume of low-value entries interspersed with one or two gems, and saw consistent bidding throughout both auctions.

UK: THERE was no doubting the piece that drew major buyers to this event at St Barnabas Church hall – the flamboyant early 19th century heraldic Italian table.

UK: THE English Literature and History sale held by Sotheby’s on December 19 opened in unexpectedly dramatic fashion when an English alchemical manuscript drawn up in 1624 by Leonard Smethley, miraculously transmuted an estimate of £6000-8000 into something just as welcome as the gold or silver that ancient practitioners hoped for – a huge bid of £180,000!