News

UK: GAVELNET.COM, the San Francisco-based Internet auction specialists have denied claims that they are winding up their UK operation.

FRANCE: FOLLOWING the recent agreement on a definitive text by a bicameral parliamentary commission, France’s auction reform was adopted by the Assemblée Nationale on May 23 and is slated for its final reading in the Senate on June 27.

UK: The Passage through parliament of the Kent County Council and Medway Bills – designed to regulate the trade in all forms of second-hand goods in the county – has been held up until the autumn.

Memories of high royal days on the Cowes riviera were recalled on the Isle of Wight when a relatively plain Victorian mahogany dressing table surfaced at Shanklin Auction Rooms on June 6.

UK: THE MINISTER for the Arts, Alan Howarth, made it clear last week that he was not going to be rushed into further regulating the trade in art and antiquities.

Following the decision earlier this year to reform the structure of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and to merge with the ISVA, the RICS will split into 16 faculties from the beginning of 2001.

US: ONE OF the rarest chairs in the world has met with an unexpected fate at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. A 17th century Chinese folding armchair, which had accomodated the highest dignitaries of the Imperial court, was unable to bear the weight of a weary museum visitor who had disregarded the ‘do not touch’ sign and sat down to rest his feet.