News

The Antiquities Dealers’ Association have welcomed the news that Switzerland looks set to ratify the 1970 UNESCO Convention which calls for signatory countries to collaborate on the repatriation of stolen and illicit works of art.

The Fine Art Auction Group have announced three new appointments aimed at strengthening the Group’s business in the South West. Nigel Trevelyan has joined the group from Rendells in Ashburton to run Robin A. Fenner’s saleroom in Tavistock.

Representatives of a US company trading in class action certificates are coming to London to meet UK recipients of vouchers relating to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing settlement in the USA.

AFTER more than 40 years the Chelsea Antiques Fair is to become an annual rather than bi-annual event. From next year owner Caroline Penman will drop the March staging.

The market for cricket memorabilia is dominated by Australian and UK collectors who battle every summer for the best entries in London’s major June and July sporting sales. This year Melbourne-based Ludgrove’s (15% buyer’s premium) joined the major houses and held a Literary, Historical and Sporting sale on July 29 at St James DeVere Cavendish Hotel.

It is such an obvious thing to do that it is surprising that there not similar dispersals to that of the Colin Adams collection of English pennies (1797-1970) at Spink (17.65% buyer’s premium) on July 23. It required 375 lots to cover this collection and so we are furnished with a price guide for what is surely a popular if relatively elementary passion.  

IT WAS the Sotheby’s sale of July 10 that included the largest and most significant portion of Churchilliana on offer this summer, but it was not the only sale to serve the market, as this report shows.