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Lorenzo R. Rudolf has been appointed vice president of International Fine Art Expositions, the David Lester-run fair organising business now owned by dmg world media. Mr Rudolf was the driving force behind ArtBasel for over 10 years before leaving in 1999 to become the director for the Frankfurt Book Fair. He also conceived and set in motion the plans for ArtBasel Miami Beach, launched in December.

STRANGE to associate the HMV label in any way with fishing, but one of the highlights of Holt’s March 6 sale at the Duke of York’s Barracks, Chelsea, will be this rare copy of Tarpomania – the madness of fishing, written in 1908 by the industrialist and founder of His Master’s Voice, Eldridge Reeves Johnson.

Gino Severini’s Les objets deviennent peinture (vase bleu et maïs) was one of the most significant lots in Christie’s 310-lot auction of Contemporary art in Rome on December 18. Dating from 1965, this picture was the last oil still life he was to paint and, indeed, one of the last works to be finished before his death.

LARGE quantities of antique pewter are rarely seen at auction these days but even so, the supply of ordinary material is hardly met with rampant demand. As such, prices were kept down for the majority of the 122 pewter lots that Bonhams had impressively gathered for their Chester sale on 17 January.

JUST as Phillips announce their cutbacks, Bonhams have unveiled annual sales for 2002 of $304m. This announcement completes Bonhams’ first full year of trading after the November 2001 merger in which they combined with the UK interests of Phillips Son and Neale.

“SELECTIVE” can mean “poor” when auctioneers apply the word to bidding and the downward spiral of brown furniture prices has emphasised this. But it was an accurate enough description of bidding on furniture offered among the 1200 lots at the Clifton rooms, for when there was a piece of unusual quality it sold well.

UK: A LIBRARIAN who wrecked valuable books and sold them to a Cheltenham dealer and a London market stall faces jail after being convicted of theft.

Withers LLP, the international private client law firm, has launched a specialised legal service for clients concerned with cultural assets. The new service will be headed by Pierre Valentin, formerly legal counsel for Sotheby’s Europe, who has joined Withers.

HOUSE price gains have outstripped furniture price increases in the south east of England for the first time in 34 years, according to the Antique Collectors’ Club Antique Furniture Index. It is the first time property has taken the lead since the Index started at 100 in 1968. Furniture recorded a slight drop at the end of 2002, falling from 3575 to 3492.

DAVID Duggleby of Scarborough and Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh have joined the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers. The announcement of their membership comes as SOFAA also open their doors to valuers for the first time and change the society’s name to the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers.

THE one-day conference on the future of professional fine arts education and qualifications set for January 29 has been cancelled because not enough people signed up for it.

There were two surprising results at the Lempertz Asian Art sale in Cologne on November 22-23. This large, anonymous Japanese 17th/18th century Indian ink and watercolour, Daimyô in Kamishimo with tachibana weapons and two swords on a tatami mat, paper 4ft x 2ft 10in (1.22m x 86cm), right, soared 100 times estimate to make €80,000 (£51,300).

This icon of 20th century modernist design – Marianne Brandt’s celebrated tea infuser of 1927 was one of the highlights of Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 117-lot sale of 19th and 20th century design on December 11.

The easel that was used to create some of the most celebrated nursery images of the 20th century will be going under the hammer later on this month.

FILLED with nearly 200 dazzling images of battles, knights, damsels in distress, tournaments, and castles that represent the finest work of the Rouen illuminators of the early Renaissance and captures all the pageantry and drama of the Hundred Years’ War, the extraordinarily fresh illuminated manuscript of Froissart’s Chronicles that sold for £2.75m at Sotheby’s on December 3 must have been the finest and most profusely illustrated manuscript of that famous work ever made.

A 1467 second edition of the second part of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, a massive treatise on moral rather than dogmatic theology that stands as an independent work, was one of the earlier printed highlights of a $4.69m (£2.97m) sale held by Sotheby’s New York on December 13, and once again it was one of a number of lots making a rapid return to the rooms.

A full-length Plains Cree Indian male costume from Saskatchewan River in Canada, consisting of a moose-hide shirt, pair of bottom tab leggings, and pair of soft-soled moccasins, sold for €130,000 (£83,300) at Millon & Associés (17.5/13.5% buyer’s premium) on December 2.

TENSION in the Middle and Far East has sparked a rapid rise in gold prices – the biggest in six years. The gold fix soared £4 an ounce in the second week of January – amplified to a $9 rise by the weakening dollar – as the world continued to brace itself for war in Iraq and further trouble with North Korea. Meanwhile low interest rates have made gold a more promising investment.

ON December 10 Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins (15% buyer’s premium) offered the residual contents from the home of amateur painter and gallery owner Olive Cook, whose early friendships with Henry Moore and Eric Ravilious helped hone her artistic eye.

NEIL Munro, the former managing director of DMG Antiques Fairs, has joined Shropshire-based Wellington Market Company, the owners of Town and Country Fairs, to create a dedicated antiques division.