News

Jewellery worth between £10,000 and £15,000 has been stolen from Harrogate Antiques Centre.

Even before the latest Russian art sales in London started this week, the enormous sums of money being spent in this sector became evident when Sotheby’s announced the private sale of their two star lots in advance of their auctions.

The most expensive printed book sold at auction will go on display to the public after the buyer pledged to lend it to libraries across the US before putting it on permanent loan at one of them.

Oliver Barker is to take over responsibility for evening Contemporary art sales for Sotheby’s in New York and London following the departure of Tobias Meyer.

This cased Austro-Hungarian gold and enamel brooch/pendant with a diamond-set monogram and coronet was the gift of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to Mary Marshall, the head housekeeper at Welbeck Abbey, country residence of the Dukes of Portland, from the 1890s until her retirement in 1923.

‘The Pink Star’ – a 59.60-carat oval cut pink diamond – sold for $83m (£55m) at Sotheby’s Geneva on November 13, an auction record for any gemstone or jewel.

When, in 1854, William Holman Hunt decided to leave England to further his religious painting in Syria, John Everett Millais was distraught at the prospect of losing the only friend he entirely trusted.