UK

Auction house Sotheby’s has reported a 70% jump in private sales in the first three months of 2018 to $247m (£182m).

Nearly 90% of art and antiques dealers want easier ways to borrow money to fund purchases and nearly a third believe the lack of available lending hampers growth, according to a recent report.

A database of Egyptian and Nubian antiquities has been launched by the British Museum after it was awarded a government grant of nearly £1m.

Imperial Health Charity was awarded £8000 to add to its collection at the London Original Print Fair last night.

A card signed ‘I am Jack the Ripper’ that had been in police files until the case into the Victorian killer was eventually closed sold for £22,000 at Grand Auctions of Folkestone, Kent earlier this week.

Among the rich history of the British military is the story of regimental silver. As regiments are disbanded or amalgamated much of this history has been in danger of fading away, but these magnificent examples of silver help to keep memories alive.

A painting thought to be a copy of a Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) portrait when it was deaccessioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art will now be offered at Christie’s in London with a full attribution. It will carry an estimate of £3m-5m.

Serbian artist Marina Abramović (b.1946) is famed for her unpredictable, avant-garde performance art but this summer she comes to Masterpiece London set in stone.

A Sir Stanley Spencer painting will be shown in public for the first time in more than half a century ahead of its auction at Sotheby’s.

A Cambridge auctioneer has negotiated the return of a pre-Columbian artefact to the Bolivian government.

Scottish auction house Iain M. Smith has announced the date of its first sale since a fire destroyed the saleroom’s premises at Perth Aerodrome in Scone.