UK

New degree demands a higher entry qualification in bid to win RICS backing

The launch of a new collecting agency for the artist’s resale levy has broken the monopoly of The Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS).

BONHAMS have brokered a last-minute deal to save the unrivalled Jonathan Minns Collection of Industrial Archaeological Artefacts from being split up.

“This was the earliest Cup Final programme I’ve ever seen,” said Graham Budd (15% buyer’s premium), referring to lot 747 in his sale on May 9-10 in association with Sotheby’s Olympia.

Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull unveiled two new appointments at the official opening of their new London office on Tuesday, March 9.

2007 fixture will be cut to three days

PHILLIPS de Pury & Company are to open a new London saleroom and hold a special Contemporary Art and Design auction on October 14 during the Frieze fair.

LESS than two months remains to find the final £116,057 towards the £1.4m price of a unique portrait of the 17th century poet John Donne.

It gives some idea as to how furniture connoisseurship has changed that the upholstered high-back chair pictured here could once have been accepted as an original furnishing from the bedroom of Mary Queen of Scots.

All Bank of England banknotes issued prior to the early 1800s are rare but the note, pictured here, dated 30 August 1705, is believed to be the oldest in private hands.

Long-time Kent auctioneer Mervyn Carey is to retire after more than four decades in the business. He held his last sale at the church hall in Tenterden last Wednesday.

Art London moves from its summer slot to autumn and also changes location for its eighth staging.

A Bedford woman who was downsizing homes decided to enter this piece of family silver into her local auction house. It proved to be the stellar entry in W&H Peacock’s April 7 antiques sale when, after generating considerable pre-sale attention from the London silver trade, it far outstripped the saleroom’s unpublished expectations of around £3000-5000, selling to one of their number for £28,000 (plus 12.5% premium).

MUSSOLINI’s son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, would have done well to heed the imagery of this black glazed terracotta head when another version of it came into his possession.

Essex centre to be environmentally friendly

Works by Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) are only very occasionally seen on the market. So when this evocative watercolour Salt Marsh was offered at Sworders (15% buyer’s premium) sale in Stansted Mountfitchet on April 11 it attracted at least seven interested parties.

CAPTAIN Thomas Bowrey’s principal claim to fame has been as the author of a 1701 English-Malay dictionary. Despite criticism of its clumsy errors, eccentricities of transliteration and quaint dialogues, this remained a standard reference for over 100 years.

Whether it was the result of quiet, pious reflection, plentiful practice, or simply the bonds between close friends, the samplers produced by the girls of Ackworth School in West Yorkshire developed a distinct individual style.

As ATG went to press, the best-selling work of art in last week’s series of Islamic sales in London was this impressive 16in (40cm) diameter blue and white Iznik pottery dish, right, offered at Christie’s on April 4.

A substantial portion of the antiques stolen from Ramsbury Manor, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, on February 1, have been recovered near Stratford-upon-Avon.