News topics

The priorities, concerns and opportunities for the British art market are being taken directly to government with a new report launched this week.

New EU rules designed to improve checks on imports of ancient artefacts “will cripple the legitimate international trade”, warns Vincent Geerling, chairman of the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art.

The completion of Mark Law’s deal to buy auction house Dreweatts from stamp dealer group Stanley Gibbons has been delayed due to a change in financial backing for the £2.4m purchase.

Among the eye-catching pieces sold during London Art Week (June 30-July 7) was this reversible games board made in the late 16th or early 17th century in the northern province of Portuguese India, probably Bombay.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is to push ahead with a consultation on the trade in ivory before making any changes to legislation.

Translated from a Paris version that had appeared earlier in that same year of 1535, an 8pp German newsletter giving an account of the execution of Thomas More sold for $11,500 (£9055) as part of the Eric Caren archive at Christie’s New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 15.

The UK and European Union now face an uncertain future, with cross-border controls a key concern for exporters and importers as politicians debate memberships of the single market and customs union. What does this mean for the art market and its insurance needs?

An impeccably preserved portrait of Thomas Pope, later 3rd Earl of Downe, by William Larkin (1580-1619), led Bonhams’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) Old Master Paintings sale on July 5.

“There are insurers in the market who purport to be specialists but who have little, if any, experience in settling difficult claims, such as those involving depreciation as a result of damage. Their premiums are very competitive, but brokers have no knowledge of how claims will be settled.

While it is well known that Queen Victoria sent her troops tins of chocolate boxes for Christmas in the second Boer War (1899-1902), the eight scarves she personally crocheted to send to individual soldiers are not so familiar.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s much-loved tale of The Little Prince was first published in New York in 1943, with Reynal & Hitchcock issuing it in both French and English versions.