UK

THE critically acclaimed Modern British loan exhibition, which has in recent years become the trademark of the Spring Olympia fair in London, has been abandoned and will be replaced by a sleeker, more contemporary show.

The natural desire of a woman to wear the dress of her dreams on her wedding day may be an element of vanity even a Quaker bride cannot completely suppress.

THE undoubted high point of Christie’s King Street’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) single-owner sale on April 22 was the Italian equestrian bronze group of Carlo Emanuele I, Duke of Savoy pictured right.

The Yorkshire Dales, have proved a happy hunting ground for Tennants when it comes to selling classic cars and motorbikes.

NEWLY refurbished rooms at Send in Surrey mean that Ewbanks will now be able to hold two general sales a month (on the first and third Thursdays) with quarterly sales of fine art and antiques.

ENGLISH POTTERY SALESTHE products of the Staffordshire potteries from blue-printed tablewares to cottage chimney ornaments and Toby jugs to ironstone services, were the subject of a 356-lot sale at Bonhams’ Knightsbridge (20/12% buyer’s premium) back on May 11.

SIMON Hope of Hatton-based H&H Classic Auctions is to ride the full length of the Pennine Trail for charity.

FOUNDED in 1999 with just 30 dealers, Art London rapidly established itself as an integral and, indeed, refreshing constituent of June in London.

The specialist British sale held by Spink (15% buyer’s premium) on May 5 consisted exclusively of the collection formed by Samuel King.

Following the decision of Thames Valley estate agents Simmons and Son to concentrate upon their core business, a new firm of fine art auctioneers and valuers has been established in Watlington.

Ealing Council are appealing for information on the theft of 16 pieces of Martin Brothers pottery from Southall Library in the early hours of Monday, May 23.

OFTEN I have commented that the annual Buxton Antiques Fair, the 41st of which was held in the Pavilion Gardens of the Derbyshire spa town from May 11 to 15, keeps a low national profile.

PERHAPS the rarest of all Beswick’s ouput is the Spirit of Whitfield.

AMONG the great grails of Maling collecting are the so-called Urbino style vases: 16in (41cm) high exhibition pieces c.1945 decorated in relief with a celebrated moment from classical mythology by Lucien Boullemeir to a design by Norman Carling. The scene shows Perseus holding aloft the Medusa’s head to petrify the sea monster and save the beautiful Andromeda, who is chained to the rocky shore.

Christie’s South Kensington (20/12% buyer’s premium) : Art Nouveau and Art DecoThis two-day, all-Continental offering really was a sale of two halves.

AFTER the mixed response to the Christopher Dresser material offered at Lyon & Turnbull (Buyers Premium 17.5%), it was left to the catalogue of decorative arts, consigned by various vendors, to provide the auctioneers with their biggest number of the day.

London antique dealers Mallett’s of New Bond Street have been awarded €111,533 (£80,000) by the Irish High Court after suing an Irish dealer over a stolen bureau bookcase.

Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull have secured one of Scotland’s key art collections for sale in January 2006.

Classic English furniture continues to bring good prices at auction providing the quality is there – and this Regency sofa table, right, certainly filled that requirement when it was offered at the March 3 sale in Cornwall held by Bonhams Par (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Andrew Hartley, Ilkley. Buyer’s premium: 10 per centSOME high individual prices but, for West Yorkshire auctioneers Andrew Hartley, an unusually high casualty rate of 29 per cent… “It was a very patchy market,” said Mr Hartley summing up what so many auctioneers are finding.