News

THE rarest and probably the earliest piece of printing in a February 26 sale held by Pacific Book Auctions of San Francisco, the papal indulgence from Wynkyn de Worde’s press seen right, was bid to $13,000 (£6890), but there were some other early items in the collection of editions of Aesop’s Fables formed by the late Dr Margaret Rose Quentin that opened the auction.

Welsh Ceramics in Context: Part I, edited by Jonathan Gray, published by the Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea Museum, Victoria Road, Swansea SAl lSN. ISBN 0950851752 £17.50sb. THIS well-illustrated book is based on the papers delivered to the first Welsh Ceramics in Context seminar held at Clyne Castle in 2002.

ESSEX organiser Robert Bailey is not a man easily daunted, which was fortunate when a week before his Cheshire Spring Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park he was warned of major road closures for visitors using the M6 and the Manchester route M56.

From April 1 Bonhams will increase the buyer’s premium in their Knightsbridge rooms to bring it in line with that charged at Bond Street.

LAST September, businessman and glass enthusiast Nicholas Lyne sold his stake in Berkshire auctioneers Law Fine Art to his partner and co-founder Mark Law and teamed up with Sussex ceramics dealer Brad Dover of Jupiter Antiques to launch the Kensington Ceramics & Glass Fair, the first of which was held at the Kensington Close Hotel on February 26 and 27.

THE final 130 or so offerings in Abbotts (10% buyer's premium) 675-lot Suffolk sale on March 10 showed that good examples of standard late Georgian and Victorian furniture can still find buyers if the price is right.

FIFTEEN or so years ago works by the likes of Helen Allingham (1848-1926) and the Stannards of Bedfordshire had the sweet smell of success all over them. However, in more recent times the general consensus is that watercolours of this genre, which I loosely describe as “roses round the cottage door”, have slipped from favour.