UK

BOOK dealers are turning auctioneers and fair organisers in a bid to generate new income.

THIS iron casket with gold and silver damascening decoration provided the high point of the sale conducted by Shapes of Edinburgh on March 7, selling at £37,000.

COSMETICS giant L’Oréal took their multi-pronged legal tussle with online auction site eBay to the High Court in London last week.

DERBYSHIRE police are investigating a theft of diamond jewellery from a dealer’s hotel room after he returned from exhibiting at Dragon Fairs’ two-day Derby University fair.

In a final bid to block the sale of two €28m (£25.4m) imperial bronzes, a Chinese collector revealed himself as the winning bidder and said he had no intention of paying for them.

ANY remaining hope that The Mall in Camden Passage might remain as an antiques centre has vanished after a government inspectorate ruled in favour of the landlord’s redevelopment proposals.

POLICE are urging churches to review their security measures after 20 pieces of valuable silver were stolen in raids on three churches in Warwickshire villages in under a week.

COOPER Fairs have bought The Buxton Antiques Fair, at one time among the most prestigious of provincial fixtures.

TWENTY of London's top art dealers have joined forces with the auction houses to launch Master Paintings Week in London this summer.

Among the highlights of the sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 17 was this William IV patent mahogany library armchair, with carved acanthus leaf sides, turned lobed front legs and outswept back supports.

JAMES BRINDLEY lies amongst these Rocks,He made Canals, Bridges, and Locks...

Following a review of their premises, Dreweatts, the UK’s largest regional auctioneer, are to close their Nottingham saleroom.

SOUTH Wales auctioneers Peter Francis anticipate moving to their new Carmarthen saleroom in the spring.

AN outcry from interest groups has bought more time to save the Broadfield House Glass Museum at Stourbridge, which was earmarked for closure by Dudley council.

THE owners of Antiquarius have submitted their plans to the council to turn the West London antiques centre into American fashion chain store.

BY 1780, John Trumbull (1756-1843), a budding young artist from Lebanon, Connecticut who had sketched the Revolutionary War, found himself in grave difficulty.

BIRMINGHAM auction house Biddle & Webb are to open a Wolverhampton office later this month.

WHILE children celebrated as schools shut down across the country, the reaction of the art and antiques trade to the heavy snow that swept over Britain last week was largely less exuberant.

Melting bidders' hearts in a snow-covered Dorchester, this rare Doulton figure of a little girl cradling a doll proved the star attraction at Duke's sale on February 5-6.

Prisoner-of-war work is the name given to intricately crafted small objects created from carved bone or wood and straw marquetry by captured French prisoners languishing in the hulks and other jails during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.