UK

The government’s imminent ivory law change has forced an international collectors’ conference to pull out of London and move overseas.

The antiquarian book trade is lobbying for changes to the proposed EU law designed to crack down on imports of cultural goods ‘more than 250 years old’.

An Edwardian Carlton House satinwood desk of the type which was once a best-seller at auction, but an early casualty of the furniture slump, was back in favour at the Hartleys (17.5% buyer’s premium) summer sale in Ilkley.

From the same source which provided Sotheby’s success with a fine collection of Scottish Colourist works (ATG No 2347), a large late 19th version of the Medici Vase led the two-day Glasgow sale at Great Western Auctions (23% buyer’s premium).

Running to just over a hundred pages and containing numerous illustrations of ships, figureheads and portrait busts, an accounts ledger kept by a Cumbrian shipbuilder has gone to a local museum.

The latest batch of period portraits to pass through Cheffins featured several from a late-16th century property in Great Chesterford, Essex. Passed by descent, the quartet was led by an attractive English School portrait of Queen Mary I (1516-58), an oil painted on an oval 2ft x 21in (62 x 53cm) canvas.

The Meissen model of Count Bruhl’s Tailor was a major attraction at Hampshire auction house Jacobs & Hunt (26% buyer’s premium).

British watercolours depicting the beautiful county of Devon and painted during the medium’s golden age drew eager bidding at Cheffins of Cambridge (22.5% buyer’s premium).

To celebrate 30 years in the business, Jonathan Cooper Gallery of Chelsea hosts a group exhibition of figurative painting, drawing and sculpture by contemporary artists.

Most of the UK may be going through a heatwave, but even if the clouds appear IACF’s new three-day antiques and collectors’ fair at the Staffordshire Showground will shine through.