Auctioneers

THE 1953 FA Cup Final will forever be known as the Matthews Final.It was while playing for Blackpool against Bolton Wanderers that the legendary winger Sir Stanley Matthews (1915-2000) gave his career-defining performance and won the only major honour of a long career.

RUNNING a tighter ship and targeting commissions to bring a better yield have helped Sotheby’s achieve the second biggest quarterly profits in the company’s history.

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has placed a temporary export ban on Raphael's Head of a Muse after ruling that an attempt should be made to keep the £26m drawing in the UK.

AS court proceedings draw closer, Christie’s have upped their long-running damages claim against Artprice from 2m euros to a hefty 63m euros. The auction house originally filed the suit against the French art database in 2008, saying that the reproduction of e-catalogues on their website constitutes copyright and trademark infringement.

ON June 24, Gloucestershire auctioneers Chorley's will offer for sale this enormous 47 x 47ft (14.3 x 14.3m) reconstruction of the Orpheus pavement, a Roman mosaic.

THIS rare Charles II clock by John Knibb of Oxford, c.1685, was recently found by the vendor when sorting through effects inherited from a family member around 50 years ago.

BRYAN Goodall, owner of the Hambleton Group which includes toy auctioneers Vectis of Stockton-on-Tees, has invested £600,000 in ArtsBank, a new gallery and arts centre in nearby Saltburn-by-the-Sea.

Last month in Harrogate, auctioneers Morphets held a sale of what is thought to be the biggest collection of vintage railway posters ever to come on the market.

DORCHESTER saleroom Duke's achieved the highest price for a UK regional auctioneer so far this year when this Qianlong mark and period vase sold at £625,000 on February 11.

WORCESTERSHIRE auctioneer Philip Serrell has been asked to sell, at short notice, Cotswolds School furniture from the dormitories of Hazelrigg Hall, now part of Loughborough University.

DUBLIN auctioneers Adam’s are to open a new office in Northern Ireland – and take over the running of one of the province’s leading commercial galleries.

SIGNS of recovery at the top end of the art market were seen again as greater levels of international bidding emerged at the latest contemporary art auction series in London.

FOLLOWING the severe winter weather that has struck the East Coast of the US, Freemans of Philadelphia chose to postpone for a week the sale of the Lehman Brothers Collection Part II.

IT is in the nature of display cabinets not to stand out. By definition they are unobtrusive vehicles intended to take a back seat to their contents.

John Ward, head of Sotheby’s New York silver department, said it was the piece of American silver that had it all: “Large size, great condition, beautiful design by an idiosyncratic maker, fresh provenance, and a great story.”

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

If the price paid for Alberto Giacometti's (1901-1966) sculpture L'Homme qui Marche I is anything to go by, then the art market is now striding out of recession. Selling for £58m (plus premium) at Sotheby's evening sale on February 3, it became the most expensive object ever sold at auction.

SERIOUS levels of demand emerged for works at the very top end of the art market as this month’s flagship Impressionist and Modern art auction series raised a combined hammer total of £225.8m, massively up on the £108.8m for the equivalent series last year.

MAJOR American museums played an active role as both buyers and sellers in the latest Old Master sales in New York.

CHRISTIE’S have announced a 24 per cent year-on-year fall in sales for 2009 to £2.1bn.