UK

ON December 10 Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins (15% buyer’s premium) offered the residual contents from the home of amateur painter and gallery owner Olive Cook, whose early friendships with Henry Moore and Eric Ravilious helped hone her artistic eye.

High quality watches are still in demand but condition is all-important to today’s discerning collectors. At a sale devoted entirely to watches at Christie’s King Street back on November 26, this gold chronograph pocket watch, right, by Louis Audemars c.1870 took £40,000.

Despite the recent media interest in the routine sale of Royal gifts through household staff and approved dealers, the practice of flogging Crown chattels is nothing new. More official and intimate material of royal provenance has buoyed the market for decades, if not centuries.

THE sad plight of silver is as well known as the boom in all Arts and Crafts pieces – what happens when the two come together was the question at Sworders’ sale when this pair of plated candlesticks, right, were offered.

CHRISTIE’S have unveiled some major changes for their 20th century decorative arts policy in Europe. The auction house have closed their King Street department and are concentrating all their London activities in decorative arts at South Kensington. They also want to develop and raise the profile of this field in France with regular dedicated auctions in Paris under specialist Sonja Ganne.

LAUNCHED 18 years ago with the interior decorator in mind, a reminder that the thrice-yearly Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair is still going strong and will be held this week in its trademark marquee in Battersea Park, London SW11 from January 14 to 19.

CURRENTLY decorators’ darlings, the distinctive and different antique dealers David Grocott and Ian Lemon, who work out of Chelsea’s Core One under the name Plinth, are taking a stand at the Spring Fine Art and Antiques Fair at London’s Olympia from February 25 to March 2.

There will be three newcomers among the 100 or so exhibitors at this year’s BADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair, which will be held at The Duke of York’s Headquarters in Chelsea’s King’s Road, London SW3 from March 19 to 25.

Contemporary Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s annual showcase for new craft and design, gets underway for its seventh successive showing next month. For a week from February 13-21, the Bond Street rooms will be given over to the latest in furniture, lighting, ceramics, jewellery, glass, silver and textiles by over 50 designers from round the world, all for sale.

One of the most significant and comprehensive sales of Victorian paintings for some time is to take place next month when The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art goes under the hammer at Christie’s King Street. The sale of more than 350 lots comprises almost the entire collection, which was assembled over three decades by one man, Christopher Forbes, of the well-known American publishing family, and was housed until now at Old Battersea House.

THE Society of Fine Art Auctioneers have agreed to accredit the Southampton Institute’s BA (Hons) Fine Arts Valuation degree as an approved entry route to professional qualification within the Society.

LONDON: THERE are just a few places left for the one-day Fakes and Forgeries seminar at Goldsmith’s Hall in the City on January 22. Silver expert and dealer Alastair Dickenson will be the guest speaker. The other speakers include Dr Robert Organ – Superintendent Assayer and Tim Swann – Senior Assayer, both of the London Assay Office.

Full militarisation of a collapsing German economy towards the end of the First World War resulted in the country’s famous toy makers struggling for raw materials. Richard Steiff, director of the eponymous bear factory, was forced to find an alternative fabric to mohair, an unobtainable luxury, so that production could continue in 1919.

UK: POLICE have announced that they won’t be launching a full investigation into Stonegate Antiques Centre owner Anthony Gilberthorpe. Following their preliminary inquiries, Detective Constable Clive Rich, of North Yorkshire Police, said the force would not be conducting further investigations into either Mr Gilberthorpe or the centre in York.

“Stunning” was how auctioneer Ian Wright of Sheffield Railwayana Auctions (no buyer’s premium) described his December 7 sale. Taking £555,703 over the 550-lots, of which only six were left unsold, the sale showed how this buoyant market just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

FOUNDED in 1976, Caroline Penman’s West London Antiques and Fine Art Fair, which will be held from January 16 to 19 at Kensington Town Hall, W8, is now a new year institution and its famously friendly atmosphere has for some time been a gentle way of getting some good dealers back on to the year’s fairs circuit.

WELSH organisers Robert and Carol Pugh, who operate as Towy Antiques Fairs, finished last year with a flourish when their pre-Christmas Carmarthen Fair at the local showground proved surprisingly successful.

Seen here are two lots from the Ronald A. Cohen collection of Books, Prints and Objects illustrative of the History of Dentistry and Teeth, a 674-lot sale held by Bonhams on December 10.

THREE new dealers have moved into Alfie’s Antique Market in London’s Marylebone, bringing the total number of shops in one of London’s most popular and innovative centres up to 80.

JOSTLING for space on the January fairs calendar, Cooper Antiques Fairs get their year under way with The North Cotswolds Antiques Fair at Stanway House on January 11 and 12.