UK

WHILE much of the art dealing world struggles to keep its galleries open, one City-based family firm is actually expanding to two London showcases.

FOLLOWING last year’s inaugural, successful summer show of graduate student’s work, The Metal Gallery at 90 Mount Street, London W1 have declared this an annual event and this year’s selling exhibition, The Graduate 2004, will run from July 21 to September 11.

FOR years now, the annual Snape Maltings Antiques and Fine Art Fair has been an institution in the fairs world. Sited in a large tented pavilion behind the Maltings in the beautiful Suffolk countryside, it is certainly a contender for the most attractive setting of any fair anywhere. But it has been going for 37 years and no event lasts that long on looks alone.

AT its fifth annual staging from June 18 to 20, Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow reinforced its reputation as Scotland’s premier antiques event and, although it did not break the current pattern of very patchy fairs business, it is telling that already almost all the 116 exhibitors have rebooked for next year.

BIGGLES had a big day planned at Dominic Winter’s Swindon salerooms on June 24, with just over 100 lots on offer, mostly from one collection.

THE considerable coverage given to Asia Week in London, on these pages and in the national press, rather neglected one gallery which was bringing the art of the Orient to London long before the Asia week promotion was thought of.

THE National Maritime Museum are asking for help in tracking down two missing paintings by William Hodges. The works The Effects of Peace and The Consequences of War were last seen at a European Museum sale at Christie’s in 1813.

SPEAKING after a combined-operation sale at Edinburgh on June 10-11 which offered jewellery, silver and furniture, Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) specialist Bruce Anderson said: “Ultimately trade buying underpins a sale so if the trade is finding business tricky this affects us.

WITH London hosting Asia week, Olympia and Grosvenor House in June, there was always going to be a trade battle for a Chinese vase which proved the sleeper of Charterhouse's (15% buyer's premium) 870-lot May 21 auction.

CONTINUING the recent spate of sophisticated country house thefts, valuable antiques were stolen from two homes in the south east of England in the space of a week last month.

COMBINE the perennial appeal of the Fabergé name with the current demand for all things Russian and it has been no surprise to see soaring prices for pieces by this famous firm in recent seasons.

THE Antiques Trade Gazette has learnt that Brightwells Fine Art are planning to launch a scheme where newly-married couples can use wedding gifts from their guests to bid at auction.

THE Fan Museum in Greenwich, the world’s only museum entirely dedicated to the history of fans and the craft of fan-making, have acquired an important fan painted around 1889 by Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1942).

AN auctioneer contemplating an old boxed set of wooden soldiers complete with faded instructions for war games could be forgiven for steering it towards the toy section, or even a specialist toy sale.

A SMALL group of animal stirrup cups provided the high points at Christie’s South Kensington’s silver sale held on June 16 affirming the evergreen appeal of novelty and collectors items over more useful hollowares.

THE work of the pioneering Victorian designer Christopher Dresser is soon to have a major public airing in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum opening this September. In the meantime the rarest examples of his iconic designs continue to command high prices in the marketplace.

WHEN does a jumbo tent look sophisticated and soigné? When it houses 77 galleries participating in artLONDON, which took place between June 9-13 at Burton’s Court in Chelsea.

ON July 15, Bonhams will present a double-catalogue sale of 500 lots of natural history books and watercolours from a single collection and one of the highlights will be a very special copy of Audebert & Viellot’s Oiseaux dorés ou a reflets metalliques... of 1800-02.

The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House by Anne Sebba, published by John Murray. ISBN 0719563283 £22.50hb.

The primary artistic influence behind the Prattware phenomenon that captivated Victorian society for 40 years was the freelance artist and engraver Jesse Austin (1806-1879).