Art and antiques news from 2015

This c.1690 marquetry cabinet on stand in the manner of the Anglo-Dutch maker Gerrit Jensen (d.1715) sold for £35,000 at the latest sale at Brightwells of Leominster.

Lord Ashcroft is best known for Victoria Crosses as a collector, but the bravery of the Dambusters inspired his latest attempts to buy gallantry awards.

Any drawings enthusiast visiting Paris last week would have been spoilt for choice.

Two of the three people sentenced for their role in the Cameo auction house fraud have lodged appeals against their convictions.

Eleven men charged with conspiracy to steal as part of a national investigation into high-value thefts at an auction house and museums have pleaded not guilty at Birmingham Crown Court.

It has the highest-ever estimate placed on a work of art at auction. Predicted to fetch ‘in the region of $140m’, Christie’s are offering Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)’ in New York on May 11.

Sotheby’s have begun live streaming their sales on eBay’s new auctions platform.

Two large 18th century gold medals depicting events from the reign of Catherine the Great sold for spectacular sums at Duke’s latest auction in Dorchester.

COMMENT: One is a marketing expert from outside the industry with a background in the media, luxury and entertainment sectors, the other is a career auction house professional with decades of service at the same company under his belt.

A remarkable hoard of coins shedding light on the power struggles between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons has come onto the open market in a highly unusual sale.

Drama came at a recent sale at Taylor’s Auction Rooms in Montrose when a lot of two pieces of Chinese blue and white porcelain sold for £200,000.

This portrait by Glyn Warren Philpot (1884-1937) was the star performer of pictures formerly in Sir Noël Coward’s collection sold at Christie’s South Kensington.

The BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair opened last Wednesday on a sunny Duke of York Square in Chelsea, welcoming a steady stream of visitors.

Discovered in a pile of objects waiting to be tipped at a routine house clearance, a pair of large ceramic plaques will be offered at Gary Don in Leeds this week.

One of the most spectacular regional auction finds of the past decade returns to the limelight this week with the publication of a book documenting the history of a cache of early topographical photographs belonging to the Victorian critic, artist and social reformer John Ruskin (1819-1900).

The April staging of the ‘Philadelphia Antiques Show’, one of America’s premier antiques events, has been cancelled. The fair, faced with falling dealer and visitor numbers in recent years, hopes to return in 2016 at a new venue with a broader exhibitor base.

Bath auctioneers Gardiner Houlgate (20% buyer’s premium) set a new house record on March 12 with the sale of a guitar by the celebrated French luthier Jean-Baptiste Voboam (1658-after 1731) for £120,000.

Stable year-on-year values across art and antique exports as a whole mask major changes in influence among the UK’s trading partners in 2014.

A picture stolen from a Hertfordshire house three years ago and recently recovered sold at an Essex auction last week for £80,000.

Sotheby’s have appointed Tad Smith, aged 49, as president and chief executive officer, effective March 31, 2015.