First Day’s Vase will stay in the UK
Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the Friends of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery have raised the £482,500 necessary to buy a Wedgwood First Day’s vase and prevent it from leaving the UK.
The black basalt encaustic-decorated First Day’s vase had been on loan to the museum for 35 years until it was withdrawn by its owner and sold at Christie’s Exceptional Sale in London in July 2016.
Following the Christie’s auction, the new owner applied for an export licence but the government issued an export bar and the money was raised via public appeal and from a number of funds to purchase it.
Recovered stolen jades sell at auction
Four Chinese jades were sold for 10 times their estimate after being stolen more than 12 years ago. The Qianlong period carvings were taken in 2005 by a thief who tricked his way into the home of their elderly owner.
It emerged that the Art Loss Register identified the items when they came up at a 2016 auction and the pieces were withdrawn. At Woolley & Wallis’ Asian art sale on May 16 the items sold for a combined total of £75,000.
Proceeds of the sale went to the insurer that paid out the claim for the loss 12 years ago.
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The most clicked-on stories for week June 29-July 5 on antiquestradegazette.com
1 Thousands of Titanic artefacts to be sold after bankruptcy
2 Watch: what dealers told ATG at Masterpiece
3 Scarf crocheted by Queen Victoria for army sergeant comes to auction
4 Dealers slow to adapt to new technology says market report
5 Paul Storr silver among Sotheby’s Treasures sale
Court to decide on Titanic artefacts
A court in the US will decide the fate of more than 5500 Titanic artefacts after the company that owns them filed for bankruptcy.
Premier Exhibitions, the US firm that owns the rights to salvage items from the Titanic wreck, filed for Chapter 11 in a US Bankruptcy Court and is awaiting a ruling after asking to sell the artefacts to pay off creditors.
The process is complex because of the law governing the objects. Remains from the 1912 shipwreck were brought up from the deep in several expeditions in 1987, in the early 1990s and early 2000s.
The first artefacts found in the 1987 search – around 2000 objects – are subject to bankruptcy court proceedings in Florida.
The other artefacts are controlled under an existing court order via a federal court in Virginia. This stipulates the items may only be sold together and made available for public display.
Loan firm Borro appoints new boss
John Allbrook, the new Borro chief executive and CEO.
Online loan provider Borro has appointed John Allbrook as its new executive chairman and CEO.
He joins from IT finance firm Syscap, where he was executive chairman, and replaces Paul Aitken, who left the firm in June.
Borro, founded by Aitken in 2009, loans between £5000 and £5m against the value of luxury items including fine art, jewellery, watches, fine wine, and classic cars.
The firm said it will pull out of the UK property bridging loan market to focus on luxury lending.
Allbrook says: “There is a substantial opportunity to grow our luxury asset finance business both in the UK and internationally.”
In Numbers
44,000
The number of visitors to the eighth edition of Masterpiece London, a record for the annual fair, which ran this year from June 29-July 5.
