UK

POLICE are urging churches to review their security measures after 20 pieces of valuable silver were stolen in raids on three churches in Warwickshire villages in under a week.

COOPER Fairs have bought The Buxton Antiques Fair, at one time among the most prestigious of provincial fixtures.

TWENTY of London's top art dealers have joined forces with the auction houses to launch Master Paintings Week in London this summer.

Among the highlights of the sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 17 was this William IV patent mahogany library armchair, with carved acanthus leaf sides, turned lobed front legs and outswept back supports.

JAMES BRINDLEY lies amongst these Rocks,He made Canals, Bridges, and Locks...

Following a review of their premises, Dreweatts, the UK’s largest regional auctioneer, are to close their Nottingham saleroom.

SOUTH Wales auctioneers Peter Francis anticipate moving to their new Carmarthen saleroom in the spring.

AN outcry from interest groups has bought more time to save the Broadfield House Glass Museum at Stourbridge, which was earmarked for closure by Dudley council.

THE owners of Antiquarius have submitted their plans to the council to turn the West London antiques centre into American fashion chain store.

BY 1780, John Trumbull (1756-1843), a budding young artist from Lebanon, Connecticut who had sketched the Revolutionary War, found himself in grave difficulty.

BIRMINGHAM auction house Biddle & Webb are to open a Wolverhampton office later this month.

WHILE children celebrated as schools shut down across the country, the reaction of the art and antiques trade to the heavy snow that swept over Britain last week was largely less exuberant.

Melting bidders' hearts in a snow-covered Dorchester, this rare Doulton figure of a little girl cradling a doll proved the star attraction at Duke's sale on February 5-6.

Prisoner-of-war work is the name given to intricately crafted small objects created from carved bone or wood and straw marquetry by captured French prisoners languishing in the hulks and other jails during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

THE flagship art sales in London saw a good take up last week after estimates were cut by as much as 40 per cent from their boom levels.

WOOLLEY and Wallis silver specialist Alex Butcher is well known for his expertise in the spoon world, but his most recent offering at the Salisbury saleroom took the specialisation a step further.

BOND Street dealership Mallett have replaced chief executive Lanto Synge in the wake of the company’s weakening performance and rising costs.

Remarkable for both their size and their original condition, this pair of Italian console tables c,1760 sold for £28,000 Semley Auctioneers of Shaftesbury in Dorset on January 24.

MEMENTOS of the notorious Kray Twins amassed while they served life sentences in Parkhurst and Broadmoor were offered in some 160 lots at Chiswick Auctions on the evening of January 26.

DEALERS at Antiquarius say they are “devastated” after learning that they could be evicted within the next few months. It emerged last week that the landlords of the West London antiques centre have signed an agreement which will see the premises on the King’s Road, Chelsea become an American fashion chain store as early as this summer.