UK

Jonathan Pratt, pictured, the Sussex auctioneer who has become a housewives’ favourite as a BBC antiques expert, is among the familiar faces revealing all for the forthcoming Famousmales Testicular Cancer Awareness Campaign.

THE inaugural ATG Online Auctioneer of the Year award has gone to Christie’s South Kensington.

GUERNSEY’S Martel Maides and Byrne’s of Saltney, Chester have become the latest UK regional auctioneers to benefit from the insatiable demand for Chinese mark and period works of art. Both achieved house records last week.

IT’S business as usual at Cockermouth auctioneers Mitchells for their fine art sale on Thursday and Friday, December 3-4.

DEALERS in South London have cautiously welcomed Southwark Council’s proposal to relaunch Bermondsey Market, but remain sceptical as to whether funds will be made available to make a significant difference.

FOUNDED by Brian and Anna Haughton in 1982, the International Ceramics Fair and Seminar will from next year be incorporated into the organisers new event Art Antiques London.

DEVON County Antiques Fairs (DCAF) are pulling out of the Westpoint Exhibition Centre in Exeter because of costs and the size of the venue.

THE severe flooding in the North West of England has had a heavy impact on the antiques trade. A number of shops had to close at the end of last week and transport links in the region were badly hit.

WOODBRIDGE, Suffolk saleroom Neal Sons & Fletcher included a small collection of post-War silver by Robert Welch, Gerald Benney and Stuart Devlin in their November 18 sale.

MORE than 100 dealers braved gales to be at Olympia at 9.30 on the morning of November 18 for a meeting called by Florida impresario David Lester. They were there to discuss the London International Fine Art Fair, the renamed June Olympia which he co-owns with Clarion but very much runs himself.

THE artist may not have a famous name or any track record in the saleroom, but arguably the most intriguing lot at Rogers Jones' latest Welsh Sale in Colwyn Bay was a collection of 50 striking Art Deco watercolours by Gladys Williamson (1914-2007).

A REMARKABLE collection of 70 early toasters from one private collection will be offered by Brown & Co at the Brigg Auction Rooms, North Lincolnshire as part of their winter fine art and antiques sale on December 12.

THE St Ives studio that housed Sir Terry Frost, Peter Blake and Francis Bacon has won a £900,000 restoration grant.

LONDON-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton are first off the mark in announcing top names who have signed up for one of the numerous events vying for exhibitors in June 2010.

SOTHEBY’S staged a white-glove sale in London last week as 50 works from the collection of Lord and Lady Attenborough all found buyers.

CECIL Court, the pedestrian thoroughfare in the West End of London that is home to around 20 antiquarian book dealers, has become the focus of a wider political debate on business rates.

IN a bid to boost pre-Christmas trade at Friday's Bermondsey Antiques Market, Southwark Council have waived the usual stand charge of £30 and only the £10 stall rental charge for a 9 x 3ft stall will apply. This offer applies for November 20 only.

JUST as Asian Art in London got underway, a surprise regional highlight emerged in Devon. A pair of 18th century Chinese Export pheasants were consigned for sale at Plymouth Auction Rooms by a local vendor, whose family had owned the birds for at least three generations.

DUDLEY Council are to scrap plans to close the Broadfield House Glass Museum and relocate the renowned glass collections to the nearby Cone site.

Politically correct it is not, but the ‘Negro Cricketer’ pattern, produced for just one year in 1907, certainly ranks among the rarest and most desirable of Royal Doulton series wares.