UK

If you thought the sometimes dark art of auction marketing was a new phenomenon, think again. A revealing snapshot of the business from two centuries ago was provided by a rare piece of auction ephemera sold for £300 at the Cotswold Auction Company in Cheltenham on May 1.

Antiques Roadshow and Midlands auction house Gildings have conspired again to find a second William Burges brooch.

The annual Salvo Fair at Knebworth has been bounced off its long-established spot at the Hertfordshire estate this year by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in concert. So organisers Thornton Kay and his daughter Ruby Hazael have moved their three-day show to the Stubbings Estate, just off the M4 at Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire.

The dreaded experience of the inexperienced gallery-goer: having mustered the courage to ring the buzzer on the door, you’re greeted by a deathly silence as you nervously look at the works under the hawk-like gaze of a dealer. No prices and you’re too scared to ask. This is exactly the kind of image that the organisers of Master Paintings Week and Master Drawings London are trying to combat.

He's an 18-year-old heart-throb in one of the world’s most popular boy bands. So it may surprise you a bit to know that Harry Styles of One Direction is also an antiques fan.

A remarkable survivor from a landmark battle in British military history is coming up for sale at Thomas Del Mar in West Kensington on June 27.

In response to the exhibition of The Lock at the Royal Academy in 1824, The Morning Post wrote: “Mr Constable contributes a landscape composition which for depth, sparkling light, freshness and vigorous effect, exceeds any of his works.” Christie’s will offer the picture for sale as part of their Old Master & British Paintings evening sale on July 3.

ATG Editor Ivan Macquisten will chair a debate at this year’s Summer Olympia fair on the challenges facing the industry in breaking into the Chinese and Asian markets.

The small Wiltshire firm Jubilee Auction Rooms – opened in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee year in 2002 and soon to move to larger premises in Pewsey – received inquiries from all over the world when it emerged they had unearthed a remarkable jewel-decorated flask by William Burges (1827-81) in a routine house clearance.

An alarming rise in violent robberies on antiques dealers in Portobello Road has spurred them into action to call for better police cover, CCTV cameras and even private security guards.

What a difference a year makes. The sea change of opinion among the trade on the subject of June Olympia over the past year has been pretty dramatic.

London auctioneers Morton & Eden, in association with Sotheby’s, have included in their May 31 sale this silver medal awarded to a steward aboard the RMS Carpathia for his help in rescuing passengers from the Titanic.

A collection of work by the late Sid Pollard, a well-known Yorkshire furniture maker, will go under the hammer at Addison’s sale in Barnard Castle, County Durham, on June 2.

What may be a record price for the Poole artist Guy Sydenham was achieved at Cottees of Wareham when a stoneware model of a baby rhinoceros sold for £5000 at their latest sale.

Tributes have been paid to an antiques dealer who was drowned along with his three-year-old son in a boating accident.

Two more churches have been hit by thieves in the latest of a series of break-ins targeting medieval monuments and carvings.

An impressive exhibitor list was announced last night for the inaugural Frieze Masters, the first historical art fair to be organised by Frieze. The event will coincide with the contemporary art fair from October 11-14, 2012 on Gloucester Green, Regent's Park, London.

This Victorian achromatic cabinet stereoscope was one of the more unusual offerings among the 540 lots offered at Dee Atkinson & Harrison’s recent sale at Driffield and proved the stand-out seller.

Sold at Sotheby’s in London this week, this Andy Warhol (1928-1987) portrait of Brigitte Bardot was formerly owned by her ex-husband, the German billionaire Gunter Sachs whose collection of art and furniture came to auction following his suicide last year.

A couple of pieces of Staffordshire pottery set the Banbury rooms of Holloway’s buzzing back when online bidding took off.