London

A DETAILED examination of Laura Knight's 1915 oil Carnaval by Christie's specialist Tom Rooth revealed the edge of not one but two stretched canvases.

THE new auction season kicked off in earnest in New York with one of the strongest market sectors – Asian works of art.

BONHAMS have set up a new department devoted to sales of photography joining Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bloomsbury Auctions in mounting specialist stand-alone sales in London in this field.

IT all seemed done and dusted as the galleries were cleared and the landlords put To Let signs in the front window. But now it appears there may be life in the Partridge name yet, as an unnamed consortium announced last week that it had acquired the brand.

THE first tangible evidence of the new Dreweatt-Bloomsbury alliance will be the two-day preview at Bloomsbury's rooms in Maddox Street for Puritan Values, Designers and Makers 1850-1950, the 400-lot auction of the Anthony Geering collection.

THE removal men descended on New Bond Street last week to begin the task of clearing out the stock at Partridge. By the morning of Friday, September 4, the biggest object left in the window was a large roll of bubblewrap being used to pack up the antiques for loading onto several lorries parked along the street.

FROM September 25 to 27 The London Art Book Fair will be launched at the newly expanded Whitechapel Art Gallery in Whitechapel High Street London E1.

LONDON’S Courtauld Institute of Art have stated that their Witt and Conway Libraries will continue to remain open to the public five days a week and their Photographic Survey collections will remain accessible by appointment.

Mallett have put on hold plans to leave Bond Street. In the wake of a massive rent rise last year, the London dealers announced their intended departure from the luxury goods thoroughfare, but they have been unable to pass on the lease of the building.

Furniture Futures is the first in a new series of biennial design symposia at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

MATTHEW Barton, who has over 20 years experience in the auction business, will hold his first sale under his own banner on November 25 in West Kensington.

DAVID Lester’s Florida company International Fine Art Expositions have announced that Freya Simms, who recently stepped down after four years as show director of Olympia’s antique fairs, is joining them as director of sales and marketing at Expoships and IFAE.

HAUGHTON Fairs are to move their venerable International Ceramics Fair & Seminar from its long-time home at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly to the Mall Galleries on Carlton House Terrace, SW1.

Scrimshaw, or carved bone and ivory, is very collectable, but the signature and scenes on this 7in (18cm) long whale’s tooth put it in a special league.

Dreweatts have stepped up their competition for London business by appointing James James-Crook as Director of Business Development, with immediate effect.

PARTRIDGE Fine Art, the landmark Bond Street dealership in business for more than 100 years, went into administration this week.

FLORIDA fairs impresario David Lester and his wife Lee Ann have taken control of the summer Olympia fair. They have already rebranded it the London International Fine Art Fair.

THE organisers of the TEFAF Maastricht fair are inviting dealers to apply for stands in a new specialist works-on-paper section at next year’s event.

THE busiest week of the year for Old Masters in London provided further signs that the top end of this market is surviving the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

THIS autumn, the Crafts Council will stage the fourth Origin: the London Craft Fair at Somerset House on The Strand in London.