Front Page and News

Like many grand country estates, the 17th century Grade I-listed Palladian house Aynhoe Park, seat of the Cartwright family until 1959, endured a 20th century decline.

The art and antiques sector breathed a sigh of relief with the news that shops and centres, auction houses, markets and some fairs can reopen in England from December 2.

Estimated at £6000-8000, an Anglo-Saxon bronze gaming piece – a metal-detecting find for the consignor – sold for £95,000 (plus premium) at the latest auction at TimeLine in Harwich, Essex.

London studio pottery specialist Maak achieved a record £200,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) for this vessel by Magdalene Odundo (b.1950).

A total of £9.23m was raised from the latest dedicated sales of Modern British art at Sotheby’s and Bonhams in London.

Memorabilia relating to two members of a pioneering elite group of female pilots in the Second World War is coming up at two salerooms this month.

A missing Martinware bird has been recovered more than 15 years after it was stolen from Southall Library in Ealing, west London.

David Sear, author of Roman Coins and their Values, called it “among the most exciting numismatic discoveries of the 21st century, if not of all time”.

Sworders is offering an oil sketch of the Suffolk countryside by John Constable (1776-1837) which was previously dismissed as a copy by a leading London auction house.

Event organiser IACF has scheduled new dates for the next Newark Antiques and Collectors’ Market. It will now take place on Thursday-Friday, December 10-11 (moved back one week from December 3-4).

Ottoman bead carvers in Istanbul – makers of the garlands of beads known as tesbih and komboloi – were swift to appreciate the potential of Bakelite in c.1910.

Exceptional examples of the glyphic arts – the apotheosis of jewellery collecting during the Grand Tour era – are rising high in the saleroom once more.

A Lalique glass, enamel and diamond bracelet, brooch and earring suite was sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) for the first time since it was bought by the Edwardian heiress Florence Evelyn St George (1870-1936).

Auction houses Bonhams and Phillips have both increased their buyer's premium.

A group of dealers have committed to new shops in London’s West End, in a clear sign the art and antiques market believes that retail in central London has a future after the coronavirus pandemic.

Roma Numismatics set a new record for a classical coin when a Brutus Eid Mar-type gold aureus, struck shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar, took £2.7m in London.

The record for a British coin sold at auction has been broken twice at a sale in Monte Carlo.

Lots of souvenirs were produced referencing the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746 – the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the last pitched battle fought on British soil.