Art and antiques news from 2007

Humberts of Gloucestershire have bought the estate agency and fine art auction business of Halls of Shrewsbury.

THIS George II walnut syphon tube wheel barometer by John Hallifax of Barnsley, c.1730, was one of the 209 lots from the Edwin Banfield collection offered by Dreweatt Neate of Donnington Priory on September 4. In a white glove sale all the lots found buyers.

After over 30 years at Hepper House, Bonhams have relocated in Leeds.

Cheshire auctioneer Sir Patrick Cheyne will sell a remarkable cache of work by the Sheffield School watercolourist George Hamilton Constantine (1878-1967) on September 7.

This 18th century needlework panel appears to be a fragment of a work conceived on almost Bayeux Tapestry proportions.

Following the announcement in August of a newly-discovered 1938 fairground scene by Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) scheduled to appear at Sotheby’s on December 13, it has emerged that the scene depicted is not, in fact, Beswick Fair, near Manchester, as had been mooted.

Following Christie’s decision to hold liquor sales in New York, Boston auctioneer Skinner is to launch a wine department.

Some of the heat may have left the Jack Vettriano (b.1951) market since his Singing Butler made £660,000 in April 2004, but Sotheby’s nevertheless posted the second highest price ever paid for the artist at auction when they sold Bluebird at Bonneville for £400,000 (plus premium) – the top lot of the firm’s annual sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire on the evening of August 29.

LONDON coins, medals and stamps specialists Spink have bought the American stamp auctioneers Shreves Philatelic Galleries.

November launch for ‘international’ event

Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted cast of a human skull has been bought by a group of anonymous investors, which apparently includes himself, for its asking price of £50m.

ELTHAM Palace in Greenwich is fully booked on Sunday, September 9 for its regular biannual Art Deco Fair with 15 specialist Deco dealers, including the Design Gallery of Westerham.

NOBLE Investments, the publicly listed coins company and owners of Baldwin’s auctioneers, have branched out into the stamps market.

Leyburn auctioneers Tennants have standardised their buyer’s premium rates across their sales.

OLD film footage of youngsters playing amid the rubble of the Blitz-ravaged London showed that even in our darkest hour war could be turned into a game.

A substantial reward is being offered for the return of a George III ormolu and white marble table clock by Matthew Boulton stolen from Knightsbridge dealership Hotspur on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 22.

Kent’s Canterbury Auction Galleries were one of the few salerooms to hold a good quality art and antiques sale in August.

As of September 1, the Penkridge Salerooms come under new ownership.

Sotheby’s match Christie’s with 25% premium on lots sold below £10,000

The Frieze art fair (October 11-14) at Regents Park has already spawned two ‘tailgate’ events in the form of Scope and Zoo, but this year’s new addition is a little different.