Law, crime and regulation

VALUABLE Native American artefacts were stolen in a smash-and-grab raid on an auctioneer’s car in Surrey last week. A substantial reward is being offered for the safe return of the stolen items.

POLICE investigating the theft of Tang and Yuan dynasty jewellery and body ornaments from the British Museum on October 29-30 believe the raid could be linked to the theft of Chinese jades from the Victoria and Albert Museum earlier last month.

THE Chicago Clearing Company, the US firm trading in auction house class action certificates, will be in London again this week.

GLASSWORKS by Emile Gallé thought to be worth over £1.5m have been stolen from a Swiss museum. Thieves seized 15 items by the French master craftsman in the raid on the Neumann Foundation, housed in the castle of Gingins overlooking Lake Geneva, on October 27.

AS certain as Autumn’s falling leaves, the scam fair guides have come out of the woodwork once more to trap dealers in the run-up to the Winter Olympia fair.

POLICE have alerted dealers across Ireland to a cache of antiques stolen in a weekend raid at the home of Lord Henry Mountcharles on his Slane Castle estate in County Meath.

TWO diamonds with a reported value of nearly £8m were were stolen from the Chopard stand at the Paris Biennale.

THE Venini factory of Venice are to meet with their lawyers this week to discuss stepping up legal action against the family of Italian glass designer Fulvio Bianconi.

RELATIVES of one of Italy’s leading 20th century glass designers have launched an assault on the trade in works using his name.

IN the past week dealers have been bombarded by letters ordering them to register and send off payments linked to anti-money laundering measures.

IN Antiques Trade Gazette No 1276, February 22, 1997, I reviewed a fascinating but somewhat disconcerting exhibition at Archeus Fine Art in London of drawings by Eric Hebborn (1934-1996), who has been described as the maker of the finest art fakes of the 20th century. The show offered rather convincing ‘Old Master’ drawings after the likes of Raphael, Rembrandt and Watteau, which were selling at prices up to £2500.

FRAUDSTERS are targeting internet bidders once more with the ‘stolen picture’ and ‘stolen identity’ scams on eBay.

THE owners of a mid-18th century cello by Tomasso and Lorenzo Carcassi of Florence have appealed for its safe return following a theft in North Finchley.

THE lengthy compensation payment process in the Sotheby’s-Christie’s price-fixing case looks set to drag on as the validity of every claim is determined.

CORNISH Ware fakes are becoming more sophisticated.

AUCTIONEERS and dealers in the south east are being warned by police to be alert to a man who has bounced cheques in a succession of salerooms in East Anglia.

THAMES Valley Police urgently want to trace the man pictured right, in connection with a serious offence in Oxfordshire.

SIX masked raiders broke into the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire around 3am on the morning of Sunday August 15 and escaped with an estimated £400,000 worth of jewellery.

NEWS has come in of the theft of a New Zealand ‘Waitangi’ crown. This one should prove to be particularly easy to identify because it is the rare proof – not the ‘ordinary’ issue. 

CHRISTIE’S have won leave to appeal against the High Court judgment that found them liable to pay damages to Taylor Lynne Thomson in the dispute over the £1.75m Houghton urns.