London

POLICE investigating the theft of Tang and Yuan dynasty jewellery and body ornaments from the British Museum on October 29-30 believe the raid could be linked to the theft of Chinese jades from the Victoria and Albert Museum earlier last month.

NEXT spring Caroline Penman launches a new fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall in King’s Road, London SW3. It will be called The King’s Road Antiques Fair and will run from March 11 to 13.

THE Chicago Clearing Company, the US firm trading in auction house class action certificates, will be in London again this week.

BACK in April in Antiques Trade Gazette No 1633, we pictured and discussed an unusual Derby porter mug decorated with industrial scenes of two Mancunian foundries which sold at Bonhams in London for £3800.

THE current fashionable status of antiquities and the charm of animal subject matter proved an irresistible combination for collectors last week when Christie’s offered the late Leo Mildenberg’s collection of ancient animals. The two-day dispersal of the German-born collector’s Noah’s ark, in London on October 26 and 27, totalled just over £3m.

CLARION Events, organisers of the Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fairs, have successfully completed a £45m management buy-out from their parent company, the Earls Court & Olympia Group (EC&O). They emphasise their continued commitment to the antiques fairs.

BUYING and selling art and antiques is one thing, but what about transporting it from the place of sale to its destination?

THE V&A have opened the first new gallery in their £30m transformation programme.

THE winners of the Asian Art in London Outstanding Work of Art Awards, sponsored by the Antiques Trade Gazette, were announced last week.

CADOGAN Tate, the international packing, shipping and storage company, have announced that they have turned The Packing Shop into a profitable concern. They acquired the assets and goodwill of the antiques specialists just over a year ago.

THERE are few more commercial subjects than children. Accordingly, it was no surprise that this near life-size Italian marble group of two children playing on a balcony (pictured right) by Donato Barcaglia, dating from the late 19th century stole the limelight at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) 19th century furniture, sculpture, works of art and ceramics sale on September 30.

TWO or three times a year Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer's premium) offer a selection of modern pieces in their monthly Knightsbridge silver and objects of vertu sales. Undoubtedly a growth area of the market, works by major names such as Stuart Devlin, Gerald Benney and Christopher Lawrence routinely feature amongst the top ten lots.

NEXT year’s Watercolour and Drawings Fair will move to a new venue, the Royal Academy rooms at 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1, where it will run from February 3 to 6 with an opening evening preview on February 2.

FRENCH dealer in Chinese antique stands, Laurence Paul, is currently showing at an antiques fair in Beijing, but she will be back in time for the first monthly Sunday fair of her winter season on October 17 at the Thistle Kensington Palace Hotel, London W8.

FOUNDED five years ago by Will Ramsay, the autumn version of The Affordable Art Fair runs from October 21 to 24 in a marquee in Battersea Park, London SW11. It is also held at the same venue in March.

BUSINESS could not be better for Simon Spero, the Kensington Church Street, London W8 18th century porcelain specialist who opened his annual exhibition on Tuesday last week (October 5) at noon.

EXCAVATION work due to start shortly on archaeological remains, as part of the Bermondsey redevelopment project, will not interfere with the New Caledonian Antiques Market.

RIGHT: London auctioneers Spink’s pre-sale billing of this Anglo Saxon gold penny as ”the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years” gained tangible endorsement last week when they sold it for £200,000 – a new record for an English coin.

THE chronicles of Captain Cook and his perils on the high seas of the South Pacific, possess a mixture of action, adventure, discovery, science and romance that is enough to capture the most hardened imagination.

CHRISTIE'S South Kensington are to launch a new sales programme next year that will turn them into a seven-days-a-week operation.