UK

DEALERS and supporters of the antiques trade in Camden Passage are celebrating after Islington Council threw out the proposals to redevelop The Mall.

There was high drama at Christie's latest decorative arts sale in London, when half the £3.1m total came from this Glasgow school panel by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, which sold to an American collector for £1.5m (plus premium).

All eyes were on this 3ft 3in (99cm) high Roman marble double bust of Bacchus and his lover Ariadne at Bonhams Antiquities sale on May 1.

READERS who watched the recent BBC drama Miss Austen Regrets will recall the scene in which a startled, bemused but not overly enthusiastic Jane is told by the Prince Regent’s librarian that his royal master is a great admirer and that she should feel quite at liberty to dedicate any new novel to the Prince.

Cheshire auctioneers Robert Stones and Nick Allsopp of Peter Wilson, in Nantwich, have taken part in an experiment at King’s College, London, test-driving the so-called ‘intelligent gavel’.

MARK Law and his fellow directors of Amor Holdings have completed their acquisition of Partridge of Bond Street about 18 months ahead of schedule.

The Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston, Lancashire will unveil a new Ceramics and Glass Gallery on May 14.

Two strong results for very different pieces were produced in Christie’s double bill of English furniture on April 24.

SOMEWHERE on a shelf in a pub in the Midlands there may be five rare books that could throw a whole new light on the Brontë family.

ONE of London’s oldest and most traditional art dealerships, Agnew’s, has sold its historic galleries in Bond Street and will downsize its Old Master paintings department to concentrate on contemporary art.

A BATTERED old Bible in a strongbox with a woodcut pasted on the inside of the lid was sold with a boxed rosary for £6200 by auctioneer Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on March 9. Behind it there was quite a story.

Christie’s are confidently expecting to set a new auction record for British furniture in London on June 18 when they offer a small but exclusive auction of just a dozen lots under the title 12: Exceptional furniture.

London’s latest series of Islamic auctions, held from April 7-11, produced a series of record-breaking statistics. The result of the week came at Sotheby’s on April 9 when a 14 1/2in (37cm) long iron and copper key to the ka’ba, the holiest place in the Islamic world, sold for £8.2m, establishing a new auction high for any Islamic work of art.

NORTH Yorkshire saleroom Tennants, who have made a name selling the furniture of Robert Thompson, have secured an entire Mouseman commission for sale in July.

HAVING conducted over 2000 sales, freelance auctioneer Noel Lynch is used to standing on a platform. But on May 1, he will be looking for votes rather than bids as he aims to win a seat in the London Assembly for the Green Party.

The British Antique Dealers’ Association have suspended the membership of John Hobbs pending an inquiry into the allegations made against the Pimlico Road dealer in a national newspaper.

THREE bespoke Hardy reels were offered by Holts as part of their shooting sale at Princess Louise House, Hammersmith on March 20.

IT was the finest UK collection of antique fishing tackle to come to auction for a decade and it arrived via an unusual route.

A TOUCH of spring arrived in Dorchester on April 10-11 where amongst a number of five-figure prices at Duke’s two-day sale was this tiny watercolour of a branch of cherry blossom by the prolific Victorian theorist, critic and artist John Ruskin (1819-1900). Dated 1857, it is displayed here a fraction less than its actual size.

AFTER two stagings, Clarion Events, organisers of the Olympia fairs, have abandoned their new fixture FORM. In 2009, for the first time in 13 years, it looks likely that there there will be no Spring art, antiques or design fair at the West London exhibition complex.