Front Page and News

An extensive needlework collection built up over 40 years by dealer Lanto Synge has been donated to Ulster Museum in Belfast.

On July 23 London-based specialist coin and medal auction house Morton & Eden is offering a complete set of 56 Umayyad gold dinars dating from years 77 to 132 in the Hijra calendar (696-750AD).

More than half a million pounds in fines have been issued to art dealers and auction houses by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in the six months to April 2025.

Works by two of the biggest names in art history put in a strong performance at the latest series of Old Master auctions in London.

London’s Treasure House Fair concluded last week after a seven-day run and many sales.

A rare poster heralding the birth of the British punk movement hammered for a massive £43,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) at Omega Auctions on July 1.

A fine example of the Libertas Americana silver medal is estimated to fetch between £50,000-80,000 at Anderson & Garland’s Fine Silver and Objects of Vertu auction in Newcastle on July 22.

Almost singlehandedly, Sir Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) revived the tradition of British diamond point engraving in the post-war era. His stippled glass goblets were particularly innovative: engraved on both sides of the bowl with views of the English countryside, they create an illusion of perspective.

The first of six new episodes of the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? airing on Monday, July 21 features a picture of a summer garden bought for £130 at Ardingly Antiques Fair.

Paxton House in Berwick-upon-Tweed has been reunited with an important Regency sofa it had lost for a century.

A tiny Oxfam shop in Headington, Oxfordshire, was celebrating after a set of 12 books dropped off by an anonymous donor later sold at Bonhams for £13,000 (£16,640 with premium).