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The earliest book in English on the subject, and described by H.D. Molesworth in his introduction to a 1960 reprint as “a work of art in its own right... as readily accepted for its literary content as for its technical information”, George Parker and John Stalker’s Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing... was the book that effectively introduced the process to Western craftsmen and one that had, as a consequence, a dramatic effect on decorative styles and fashions.

The book section of a general antiques sale held by Cheffins of Cambridge on November 1 ran to only 58 lots, but this saleroom produces impressive, colour illustrated catalogues and no fewer that a dozen of those lots were illustrated, some of them at full page.

Robert Brooks, who is in the middle of negotiations concerning the restructuring of Bonhams, says he is working to a target date of February 1 to complete his plans.

Less than a week after Sotheby’s became the first foreign auctioneers to sell in France, Christie’s brought down the hammer on their inaugural French sale – the first session of the Charles-Otto Zieseniss collection.

TEETHING problems galore characterised the launch of New York’s The Antiquarian Fine Art Fair, which did not really recover from a disastrous benefit preview on the evening of November 29.

A DEALER in antique prints has complained to eBay that the promotion of reproduction prints in the antiques category is slowly destroying the online market for originals.

Radical changes are planned for next year’s 13th staging of one of the world’s top fairs, the Biennale des Antiquaires at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris.