News

THE new football season brought fears in the sports pages that the game’s financial bubble was about to burst and auctioneers may have had worries too.

The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors by Eileen Harris, published by Yale University Press. ISBN 0300081294 £65 hb

Trade show strength in surprise bids on fresh-to-market pieces. If September 11 was a watershed in modern history, the way forward, as far as Hampshire auctioneers Dreweatt Neate were concerned, seems to be a retreat to how things used to be – good quality material from local private sources, the trade ready to buy it and one or two old-time sleepers.

USA: Mixed signals emerged from New York’s crucial November round of Part I Impressionist and Modern sales, the most significant test of the international art market since September 11.

ARTS Minister Tessa Blackstone has placed a temporary bar on the export of an important drawing, Study for the Institution of the Eucharist, by Federico Barocci (1528-1612).

Owners of silver spoons are generally believed to have a head start in life, and the continuing bouyancy of this market might keep a few heads above water in the coming months.