2011

SILVER dealer Daniel Bexfield has launched a campaign to prevent developers revamping Burlington Arcade off London’s Piccadilly and getting rid of small independent traders in favour of major luxury brands.

In the wider world, the photographer Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon) is best known for the fact that it was in his former studio on the Boulevard des Capucines that the Impressionists held their first group exhibition in 1874.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

A LONG-running anti-trust complaint against the Andy Warhol Foundation – one that caused them to close the authentication service – concerned a work denied twice by their board.

A KENT auction house has withdrawn a sacred Aboriginal artefact from sale after intervention from cultural experts and the Australian High Commission.

KANGXI and Qing dynasty rhinoceros horn libation cups feature regularly at UK sales devoted to Asian works of art, but this 18th century example appeared for sale at Cottone's of Geneseo in upstate New York.

LONDON’S Frieze week opened with more cautious buying this year as concerns about the impact of the current economic turbulence in Europe and the US were much in evidence.

A SILVER medal awarded to the Master of Admiral Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, who was at the ship's helm throughout the Battle of Trafalgar is to be sold by Nantwich, Cheshire, auctioneers Peter Wilson.

YOU get the impression that the Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair does not take itself too seriously – the opening page of the website bears the famous Groucho Marx quotation: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

A GOLD button which links the two most significant military figures in the foundation of the United States of America – George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette – will be sold in Leicestershire on November 1.

THIS rare-to-the-market 1913 Dieppe painting by Camden Town Group painter Charles Ginner (1878-1952) was recently rediscovered in an important Canadian collection.

SLIGHTLY nervy might best describe mood in the opening days of the two big fairs in town last week.

MADE in 17th century Gdansk or Königsberg at the very height of the amber working trade in Europe, this delicate chalice with silver-gilt mounts shot to £210,000 at Lawrences latest sale in Crewkerne, Somerset.

CHANGES in parking regulations in the West End of London have forced Jenny Glanville of KM Fairs to shelve her monthly antiques fair at the Park Lane Hotel on Piccadilly – the fixture started by her mother Kate Marlowe 35 years ago.

THE history of France’s famous Sleeper Car Company was commemorated in a single-owner sale at Christie’s in Paris last month.

A SURVEY conducted by LAPADA has revealed just how much the art and antiques trade relies on the cheque.

COLLECTABLES specialists Stanley Gibbons have opened a new office in Hong Kong in a bid to stake a claim in the Asian market for coins, military medals, stamps and historical documents.

THE existence of the elephant – “nature’s great masterpiece... the only harmless great thing”, to use John Donne’s famous description – was well known to medieval Europeans, but captive pachyderms had disappeared from the continent shortly after the demise of the Roman Empire.

MADE by James A. Miller and Brother of Chicago to a design of c.1898, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 18in (45cm) high spherical copper urn worked with repoussé panels of interlocking geometric decoration, shown here, has become an icon of the American Arts & Crafts movement.