News

FILLED with nearly 200 dazzling images of battles, knights, damsels in distress, tournaments, and castles that represent the finest work of the Rouen illuminators of the early Renaissance and captures all the pageantry and drama of the Hundred Years’ War, the extraordinarily fresh illuminated manuscript of Froissart’s Chronicles that sold for £2.75m at Sotheby’s on December 3 must have been the finest and most profusely illustrated manuscript of that famous work ever made.

A 1467 second edition of the second part of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, a massive treatise on moral rather than dogmatic theology that stands as an independent work, was one of the earlier printed highlights of a $4.69m (£2.97m) sale held by Sotheby’s New York on December 13, and once again it was one of a number of lots making a rapid return to the rooms.

A full-length Plains Cree Indian male costume from Saskatchewan River in Canada, consisting of a moose-hide shirt, pair of bottom tab leggings, and pair of soft-soled moccasins, sold for €130,000 (£83,300) at Millon & Associés (17.5/13.5% buyer’s premium) on December 2.

NOW in its 42nd year, the Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair will be bigger than ever when it runs from January 31 to February 2 at Wurttembergischer Kunstverfein.

TENSION in the Middle and Far East has sparked a rapid rise in gold prices – the biggest in six years. The gold fix soared £4 an ounce in the second week of January – amplified to a $9 rise by the weakening dollar – as the world continued to brace itself for war in Iraq and further trouble with North Korea. Meanwhile low interest rates have made gold a more promising investment.

LAPADA’S 2002 membership survey shows that dealers seem to be heading back to the public arena rather than working from home or conducting business by appointment only.

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.