UK

DAVID Lester’s Florida company International Fine Art Expositions have announced that Freya Simms, who recently stepped down after four years as show director of Olympia’s antique fairs, is joining them as director of sales and marketing at Expoships and IFAE.

HAUGHTON Fairs are to move their venerable International Ceramics Fair & Seminar from its long-time home at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly to the Mall Galleries on Carlton House Terrace, SW1.

Scrimshaw, or carved bone and ivory, is very collectable, but the signature and scenes on this 7in (18cm) long whale’s tooth put it in a special league.

Dreweatts have stepped up their competition for London business by appointing James James-Crook as Director of Business Development, with immediate effect.

This 113/4in (29cm) high slate sculpture titled Maquette for Large Sculpture: Four-Square (Four-Circle) was the first that Penzance auctioneer David Lay had offered for sale.

PARTRIDGE Fine Art, the landmark Bond Street dealership in business for more than 100 years, went into administration this week.

FLORIDA fairs impresario David Lester and his wife Lee Ann have taken control of the summer Olympia fair. They have already rebranded it the London International Fine Art Fair.

THE organisers of the TEFAF Maastricht fair are inviting dealers to apply for stands in a new specialist works-on-paper section at next year’s event.

A MULTITUDE of intriguing items sprung up at Dreweatts' 250-year Anniversary sale at Donnington Priory on July 14-15.

THIS intricate piece of turning and carving is by Binh Pho, widely regarded as the finest woodturner working in the world today. It will be just one of a number of lots created by the cream of the woodturning world being offered at a charity auction on August 7.

THE dealer who bounced a cheque at Durrants Auction Rooms, reported in last week's ATG has come forward to say it was a 'hiccup' and the bill will be paid.

THE busiest week of the year for Old Masters in London provided further signs that the top end of this market is surviving the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

IN his long career, Leslie Weller of Weller King in West Sussex has handled many varied and interesting commissions, but he now finds himself in a unique position, having been asked by a client in the north of England to find a new home for a complete collection of Arts and Crafts furniture.

THIS autumn, the Crafts Council will stage the fourth Origin: the London Craft Fair at Somerset House on The Strand in London.

JOHAN Ten Hoeve, a professional development diploma student on West Dean College’s clocks programme in West Sussex, has made a replica of a Thomas Tompion clock for the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.

NEWS that the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair had been scrapped sent shockwaves through the trade last week – but that soon gave way to a determination that the event must be revived in some form.

THE Exeter-based firm Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood are to take over Bonhams’ saleroom in Honiton in January 2010.

BRINGING out the bidders in Banbury, this Indian Mughal carved ivory khandjar handle sold for £24,000 at Holloways' latest sale.

IRONICALLY, in its 75th and sadly final staging last month, the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair reaffirmed its status as unquestionably the UK's flagship antiques event.