Art and antiques news from 2007

This summer the annual staff-exhibition at Sotheby’s is entitled No Limits and includes 40 paintings, photographs, pieces of sculpture and jewellery by members of Sotheby’s staff.

In celebration of Fellows & Sons’ 130th anniversary, students and practising goldsmiths were invited by the Birmingham-based auctioneers to submit a design for a piece of utilitarian silver.

When the Dorchester Fine Art saleroom Duke’s sold two rediscovered panels of Dominican saints by Fra Angelico for £1.7m, it was one of the best documented events outside the London rooms accompanied by months of pre-sale media coverage.

Antique hunters and collectors now have a way to locate fairs, centres, dealers’ shops and private sellers around the UK using a new online Collectables Map that pinpoints different locations.

FOR the third time this year, a dealers’ survey has highlighted the unpopularity of the Artist’s Resale Right in the trade and the indifference of a majority artists to the ruling.

EDWIN Dyson of Blind Lemon Events, who organises vintage fashion fairs across the UK, recently advertised in ATG seeking deco dealers for a garden party on Sunday, July 29.

One of the quirkier and more unusual offerings to feature in Christie’s £3.7m sale of English furniture and works of art on June 7 was this rare Elizabethan map fragment, one of the first tapestries ever produced in England.

In the 1950s, a farmer in Ingatestone, Essex found a tiny silver tag measuring just 3/4in (1.8cm) long on his farm. Shaped like a shield with a ring, one side was engraved LORD RICH above a stylised bird and the other featured a family crest.

FREQUENTLY, the most interesting object in someone’s garage is not the car.

Auctioneers are not just there for the bad things in life. It was in 2006 that Salisbury firm Woolley & Wallis were contacted by Sheffield silversmith C.J. Vander, a company in administration with stock to liquidate.

FIRST a dealer and now an organiser - Phil Savory, a Northamptonshire-based dealer in ceramics and treen who exhibits at fairs in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, has decided to start his own fairs venture, PJ Fairs.

France’s share of the global auction market fell by 5.8 per cent in 2006, warns the Conseil des Ventes, the national auction watchdog, in its annual report published on June 25. Worldwide auction activity, it says, rose 34 per cent over the same period.

Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis are to sell the collection of early English, Scottish and Irish silver belonging to the well-known London dealership How.

THIS year's Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair, held from June 14 to 20, was thought by many to have the highest quality stock seen at the event for some time.

THIRTY-six stallholders from Portobello Road made their way to Madrid at the end of June where the London street market was recreated for a day in the Spanish capital.

Christie's lose showpiece sale as Prince Charles steps in to help seal £45m deal

Bonhams are to take advantage of Sotheby’s decision to end Japanese sales by recruiting their top specialist and consultant.

THE Department of Transport have approved a design for a symbol to promote antiques on road signs.

Phillips de Pury & Company are to launch a new website – separate from its core brand – in the hope of capitalising on the growing interest in Contemporary art and modern design.

Bonhams will be hosting an event with The Antique Collectors Club to announce their forthcoming publication Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840, Cabinet Makers and International Merchants, a furniture and business history.