News

LONDON: DESPITE there being no official announcement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the papers have been full of the news that Mark Jones is to be the new director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

FRANCE: Three French museums have become embroiled in legal controversy after harbouring works of art looted from their original owners during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War.

UK: THE double January offering of two-day 1300-lot auctions at the Norfolk auctioneers followed the usual house pattern of a high volume of low-value entries interspersed with one or two gems, and saw consistent bidding throughout both auctions.

UK: THERE was no doubting the piece that drew major buyers to this event at St Barnabas Church hall – the flamboyant early 19th century heraldic Italian table.

UK: THE English Literature and History sale held by Sotheby’s on December 19 opened in unexpectedly dramatic fashion when an English alchemical manuscript drawn up in 1624 by Leonard Smethley, miraculously transmuted an estimate of £6000-8000 into something just as welcome as the gold or silver that ancient practitioners hoped for – a huge bid of £180,000!

US: AN IZANNAH WALKER doll from Rhode Island was the star turn in a Toys & Collectables sale held on December 9 in the Bolton (Massachusetts) rooms of Skinners and brought a bid of $21,000 (£14,480). Made around 1870, the 18in (46cm) tall doll illustrated right, wearing a grey-green plaid dress of silk taffeta, and with a pair of period ice skates with red leather straps strung over her shoulder, has an oil painted cloth body – even the hands and face are made of painted cloth.

UK: THE 122-lot furniture section at this Glasgow general sale was something of a double-edged claymore supplying, as it did, the biggest prices as well as the most casualties.