Front Page and News

Back in 2013 and with great fanfare, stamp dealership Stanley Gibbons revealed to the stock market that it had bought a group of art, antiques and collectables specialists.

Following the sentencing of former Mallett director Henry Neville for his part in an embezzlement case in April, Stanley Gibbons says it is “pursuing remedies for recouping the losses suffered as a result of these matters”.

The Conservative Party is expected to rethink its previous pledge for a ‘total ban’ on ivory sales in its election manifesto, due for publication this week.

Art Analysis and Research is looking for investment to meet what it says is a growing demand for science-based research from auction houses, dealers and collectors.

Boosting client confidence and keeping them better informed via new technology head the list of priorities for dealers, according to the LAPADA Members Survey 2017.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has settled a long-running dispute with the estate of a Jewish collector whose house contents was sold by the Graupe Auction House in Berlin in 1937.

Last week’s spectacular $14.5m sale of an ancient ‘stargazer’ idol has been placed in doubt after the Turkish government challenged Christie’s right to sell it.

Austrian saleroom im Kinsky has hit out at the “biased reporting” and “aggressive reaction” to its decision to offer a Nazi-looted painting at auction. With heightened media coverage about the consignment, the portrait of a Dutch merchant by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670) was eventually withdrawn shortly before it was due to be offered in Vienna at the end of last month.

A now-postponed plan by HMRC to require businesses and the self-employed to file tax returns quarterly rather than yearly “would create havoc” if it was imposed as scheduled in 2018, dealers have told ATG.

The Antiquarian Bookdealers’ Association is to rebrand its young booksellers’ apprenticeship scheme as a training programme following a change in employment law.

An ‘unworked’ ivory gong has been removed from exhibition at Sandringham House on the grounds that it was being used for commercial purposes.

A £100 Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund sword, one of 23 awarded to captains who fought at Trafalgar, sold for $235,000 (£173,000), plus 15% buyer’s premium, to one of six phone bidders competing at James D Julia in Fairfield, Maine, on April 11.

A Spanish oil billed as an early work by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) sold for €8m (£7m) at the Madrid auctioneers Abalarte on April 25.

An attempt by collecting agencies and copyright organisations to establish a global treaty on Artist’s Resale Right has been met with strong opposition from international trade bodies.

An Old Master marine painting looted by the Nazis during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 has been returned to Poland.

The overall value of online sales in the art market increased by 15% in the last year, though many buyers remain cautious about purchasing in this way, according to the annual Hiscox Online Art Trade Report.

Online giant eBay is threatening to block Australian customers from buying from overseas firms if the government enacts laws to collect a tax from online sales.

Primary provenanced Arts & Crafts furniture comes up for sale at Mallams in Oxford on May 25.

The German state has appealed against a landmark US court judgment that allowed three US citizens to proceed with a case seeking the restitution of an important collection of medieval devotional art.

Trade bodies line up to make the case for art and antiques sector