News

A Kent dealer has received a two-year suspended sentence following a three-year international operation into ivory and whale-tooth smuggling. The case is the latest under Operation Charm, an ongoing campaign against the illegal trade in endangered species in London.

Sotheby’s have announced the highlight of their autumn series: an auction of new works consigned by Damien Hirst on September 15-16.

AN historic and important medieval scientific instrument, known as the Canterbury Quadrant, has been saved for the nation. St James’s specialist dealers Trevor Philip and Sons have sold the quadrant to the British Museum for £411,250.

Christie’s King Street devoted an entire day to traditional English furnishings when a 369-lot all-day sale of the collection of the late Simon Sainsbury was followed by a highly select, mixed-owner, 12-lot evening auction of what they termed “exceptional furniture”.

The latest addition to the London street art calendar took place at Village Underground in Shoreditch on June 17, where Dreweatts became the first auctioneer from outside London to host a dedicated Urban Art Sale.

Elaine Dean, Secretary General of The British Antique Dealers’ Association for the past 25 years, will step down on July 10. She will be succeeded by her current deputy Mark Dodgson who already has 18 years experience with the BADA.

THE man regarded as the world’s leading authority on Rembrandt has declared the self portrait that sold at auction in the Cotswolds for £2.2m last October as a genuine work by the Dutch master.