UK

THE received wisdom of the art market tells us that heavily restored paintings attract little demand from the trade at auction. But sometimes a subject is just too commercial for dealers to pass by, such as this Arthur Wardle (1864-1947) canvas, right, of four terrier puppies, Mischief in Quadruplet, which came up for sale at the Nottingham rooms of Mellors & Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) back on April 23.

WOW! The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is really different this year. Well, the colour scheme is, anyway.

AN 18-strong offering of Chinese jades at Woolley & Wallis' (17.5% buyer's premium) May 25-26 sale, including this pale green, reticulated vase and cover, right, had emerged from an old South-of-England collection consigned via a fine art agent in Chichester.

Pictured right is the highlight of what turned out to be London’s Asia Week’s most successful auction.

IN these time-strapped days of TV dinners and takeaways, grand dining is something of a rarity.

GAZETTE journalist Scott Reyburn will find himself the subject of scrutiny rather than being the scrutineer for a change thanks to his contribution to So This Is London, an exhibition that forms part of Art Fortnight London.

AUCTIONEERS David Lay (15% buyer's premium) of Penzance can rely on strong local demand for home-grown collectables such as Newlyn copper and Troika pottery at the bi-monthly sales.

BONHAMS Chester hosted a 484-lot collectable ceramics and applied arts sale on April 27.

NO self-respecting specialist auction of marine paintings would be complete without at least one example from the brush of that most prolific and popular of late 19th century marine painters, Thomas Bush Hardy (1842-1897).

AN instrument maker from Manchester, who switched careers four years ago to become a clockmaker, has won a £13,250 Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to attend a specialist clock restoration course.

FAIR organisers Clarion Events are negotiating a management buyout from Earls Court Olympia, the group just bought by private property fund St James Capital in a £245m takeover.

OVER the last couple of years, a number of auctioneers have been complaining that lesser-name Victorian watercolours in the sub-£500 range have become the weakest of all areas at picture sales, sometimes to the point of having no market at all.

CONTROVERSIAL artist Tracey Emin (b. 1963) might be outraged by public “sniggering” after the loss of her works in the Momart’s London warehouse fire, but the art world has lost much more than her infamous tent. To many, much more disconcerting is the loss of the large cache of major paintings by Patrick Heron, RA (1920-1999).

GOOD-quality mahogany and oak furniture took most of the better prices in Mitchells' (15% buyer's premium) 1566-lot May 13-14 auction which totalled £325,000.

THE expansion of Bloomsbury Auctions continues apace with the announcement that they are moving into the chess and games market.

THE large sums of money rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia collectors are prepared to part with for a complete set of Beatles autographs inevitably means the market is peppered with fakes. The watertight provenance of an early Beatles extended play record, Twist and Shout, Parlophone, 1963, signed to the sleeve by the Fab Four, was key to its success at Biddle & Webb’s (15% buyer’s premium) 511-lot sale of toys and juvenilia in Birmingham on May 21.

ALTHOUGH there were no blockbuster entries in Richardson & Smith's (10% buyer's premium) 841-lot May 20-21 outing, with pictures securing most of the top prices, the highlight was a kingwood, amboyna and burr marquetry inlaid étagère by Gillows of Lancaster.

DERBYSHIRE dealer Nick Gent has taken over the London Ceramics Fair from Fred Hynds of Wakefield Ceramics Fairs and formed Prestige Ceramic Fairs to stage specialist events.

EMMA was the leading lady in a May 19 sale held by Dreweatt Neate of Newbury, an 1816 first of Jane Austen’s novel selling at £6000. Catalogued as bound in both contemporary half red morocco and later boards, it retained the half title to Vol. III only and showed a little spotting and staining. It also bore the booklabels of Gilbert Bethune of Balfour.

ONE of the Thirty-One Original Etchings of Views of Norfolk by John Crome, a portfolio collection issued in 1821 by Freemans of Norwich, that sold for £3200 to an American collector in a Christie’s South Kensington sale of April 29.