UK

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

THE luxury goods fair Masterpiece London has been granted planning permission for an inaugural event at the former Chelsea Barracks from June 24 to 29.

If the price paid for Alberto Giacometti's (1901-1966) sculpture L'Homme qui Marche I is anything to go by, then the art market is now striding out of recession. Selling for £58m (plus premium) at Sotheby's evening sale on February 3, it became the most expensive object ever sold at auction.

SERIOUS levels of demand emerged for works at the very top end of the art market as this month’s flagship Impressionist and Modern art auction series raised a combined hammer total of £225.8m, massively up on the £108.8m for the equivalent series last year.

A GROUP of Portobello Road dealers are to lobby the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea following the loss of a prominent antiques arcade to a highstreet retailer.

A PAIR of silver-gilt waiters made by William Burwash for William Beckford, “the wealthiest commoner in England” who built the lavish Gothic Revival Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, sold for £36,000 at auction last week.

A PENCIL and watercolour sketch showing men at work on a celebrated escape tunnel was a major attraction in a log or record compiled in 1943-45 by a Scottish P.O.W. sold by Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh for £3200 on January 13.

A MAN arrested in connection with passing fraudulent cheques to London dealers has appeared in court.

THE highlight of Dreweatts' January 13 furniture sale at Donnington Priory was a pair of monumental, late 19th century Italian, sculpted alabaster, twin-handled urns.

THE work of Edward Seago (1910-1974) has always been popular. Even during his own lifetime, Colnaghi’s annual exhibitions of his paintings between 1946 and 1966 on Old Bond Street drew such fierce competition that buyers, some of whom had queued overnight, were restricted to one picture each.

POLICE in North Yorkshire are seeking information following the theft in early January of a 17th century statue from St Andrew's Church, Newton Kyme, Tadcaster.

POLICE have arrested a man in connection with the passing of fraudulent cheques to London dealers as payment for antiques.

WHEN St John Price bought his first sycamore and penwork box from Halcyon Days in Brook Street, London for £30 in 1966, the term Mauchline ware was yet to be invented.

IRISH silver carries its own cachet and, as in England and Scotland, pieces with rare provincial hallmarks are always more sought-after.

This graduated pair of Staffordshire shaped oval meat platters are printed in green with scenes from the rare and desirable ‘Arctic Scenery’ series.

ANOTHER major dealership on the London antiques scene is to close with the announcement of the auction of the entire trading stock of Sampson and Horne Antiques at Bonhams on April 28.

THIS 17in (43cm) oval serving dish, seen at Chiswick Auctions latest sale, is from a breakfast service ordered by George III from Flight Barr and Barr of Worcester in 1805.

MARK Law, former chairman of Partridge, has joined former directors David Mellor and Christopher Jemmett in their bid to remove their guarantor status relating to the purchase of the firm.

POLICE are investigating cheque frauds perpetrated in London and Warwick.