News

THE Financial Services Authority’s imminent regulation of insurance mediation activity could affect UK auctioneers and fine art shippers who charge for, or help arrange, insurance.

FOUND lying face down in the attic of a local house, apparently unloved, the pastel portrait of a young girl reading a book seen right was the sleeper that awoke to a six-figure bid in an April 3 sale that gave Dennis Auction Service of Stewartsville, New Jersey, their first ever $1m sale total.

SPECIALIST firearms saleroom, Rock Island Auctions of Moline, Illinois, sold over 2800 lots for a total of $5.3m (£3m) in their April 17-19 event. Among the higher priced weapons were three prototype or experimental pistols by Mauser and Walther.

PICTURES in a May 19 sale held by Doyles of New York included a very large (6ft 4 1/2in x 4ft 1in (1.93 x 125m) oil on panel after Andrea del Sarto's Porta Pinti Madonna.

IN the 18th century, it was widely believed that meteorites found on Earth were pieces of the moon that had been blasted into space by volcanic eruption. We now know that almost all meteorites come from the asteroid belt and that it was the pummelling that the moon received in the early years of the formation of our solar system that allowed some chunks of moon rock to escape the moon’s gravitational influence and, periodically, find their way to Earth.

IN one of the most crowded week’s in London’s arts and antiques calendar, the Grosvenor House and Olympia fairs are still in full swing. Some may ask if we need more in the way of dealers’ selling exhibitions but they would get a dusty reply from the trade.

CONTENTS sales dominated the early May auction action in Belgium, and there were two more held in France later in the month. These were very different affairs – one offering an array of recently acquired furniture and objets d’art, the other being more in the “family heirloom” category.