News

Contemporary Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s annual showcase for new craft and design, gets underway for its seventh successive showing next month. For a week from February 13-21, the Bond Street rooms will be given over to the latest in furniture, lighting, ceramics, jewellery, glass, silver and textiles by over 50 designers from round the world, all for sale.

Susie Cooper’s (1902-1995) long career as a ceramics designer spanned 70 years and her output ranged over many styles including 1920s lustre, colourful blocky Deco, curvy shapes and sgraffito decoration.

THE VERY rare copy of the first Beano comic of 1938 that sold for an auction record sum of £6875 in the December 3 Comic Book Postal Auctions sale was featured on the front page of Antiques Trade Gazette No. 1568 and can also be seen in the selection of lots illustrated right.

NEW York-based Stella Show Management launch a new event this spring with an antiques and gardening show, a combination which has taken off at a number of American locations and has attracted a number of English dealers.

One of the most significant and comprehensive sales of Victorian paintings for some time is to take place next month when The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art goes under the hammer at Christie’s King Street. The sale of more than 350 lots comprises almost the entire collection, which was assembled over three decades by one man, Christopher Forbes, of the well-known American publishing family, and was housed until now at Old Battersea House.

One of the most unusual and interesting pieces in Sotheby’s December 11 sale of Continental furniture was the 19th century English boulle cabinet shown right set with a rare 17th century Dutch mother-of-pearl and hardstone inlaid panel depicting a Vanitas subject.

THE Society of Fine Art Auctioneers have agreed to accredit the Southampton Institute’s BA (Hons) Fine Arts Valuation degree as an approved entry route to professional qualification within the Society.