UK

A government u-turn on a National Insurance rise has been welcomed by the art and antiques trade, giving hope that a review of business rates could follow.

Letters from the late Princess Diana surfaced at auction earlier this year in Cambridge and now another set is being offered in Gloucestershire.

Latest auction results in the film poster market show that for the right designs with a licence to thrill the buyers will follow.

Whittlebury saleroom JP Humbert have appointed Francesca Ellis as co-director.

Works from the studio of sculptors Franta Belsky and Irena Sedlecka are coming to auction at Mallams in Oxford.

The latest series of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary art auctions in London showed a dramatic improvement on the equivalent sales last year and the overall premium-inclusive total represented a record in terms of sterling.

A painting by George Stubbs previously believed to be a copy will be offered by The Parker Gallery at BADA 2017 opening in Chelsea this week.

A report out today (March 14) calls for "significant structural changes" to the laws governing the sale of ivory in the UK but trade bodies have queried its methodology, citing low response rates.

Sim Fine Art has made its second sale to a major London institution in two years with the sale of a painting the Geffrye Museum.

The news of the impending closure of Christie’s South Kensington may not have come as a great surprise but, without doubt, its demise seems like an ‘end of an era’ moment.

A 1936 Lagonda Rapier barn find will be among the lots at the Bonhams sale of the new Lord Harlech’s family collection.

King Richard III is the Marmite Monarch. You love him or you hate him. On one hand he is regarded as a monster, on the other as misunderstood and unfairly maligned.

A camera belonging to ill-fated US aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart is among the lots going under the hammer at McTear’s in Glasgow this month.

There was some good old fashioned saleroom drama at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions in Newbury yesterday when a moai kavakava style figure, estimated to bring just £400-600, sold at £95,000. The buyer in Berkshire was from Australia.

A Lancashire art and antiques dealership is appealing for help to track down a stolen antique Russian drinking vessel.

As the market changes, salerooms come and go. Few have come and are soon to go like Christie’s South Kensington. But the forces behind the impending demise of the once-trailblazing auction house have been in the works for some time.

Some small businesses have been given a reprieve in the Budget today from the planned hike in business rates.

Christie’s is proposing to close its auctions in South Kensington.