Front Page and News

The New York-based art shipping firm Arta is in the process of raising its second round of funding – this time to help it expand in the UK and Europe.

The London Assay Office has spoken out against moves to allow UK hallmarks to be stamped overseas.

A group of five 8in (20cm) William de Morgan (1839-1917) tiles drew lively competitive bids at Cuttlestones in Wolverhampton on June 8.

The new president of The National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers (NAVA) has called for all auctioneers to be qualified and regulated.

Among the pieces of Fabergé bringing competition at last week’s Russian art sales in London was this c.1909-13 silver vodka cup offered at Sotheby’s.

Lots Road Auctions is to relocate to a purpose-built new saleroom as part of a property development on the Chelsea street.

Surrey auctioneers Ewbank’s is to sell the stock-in-trade of furniture restorers Arlington Conservation on June 23.

A major work by French academy painter Edouard Joseph Dantan (1846-97), unseen for over a century, has emerged at an auction in Colchester.

Victoria Borwick, president of the British Antiques Dealers’ Association, lost her Kensington seat following two recounts in the constituency at last week's General Election.

Criterion Auctioneers has opened a valuation office in South Kensington in the hope of snaring some of the business left by the closure of Christie’s in the area.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days.

The British Antiques Dealers Association (BADA) will launch a new collectors’ show this autumn bringing together 20 dealers for a “curated collectors’ event”.

The valuation of an Anglo- Saxon jewellery hoard discovered in Yorkshire is being disputed by the finder.

Estimated at £15,000-25,000, a still-life by Dora Carrington (1893-1932) sold for £72,000 at Mallams in Oxford on May 26.

Earlier this year Woolley & Wallis decorative arts specialist Michael Jeffery received a call out of the blue from the family of a recently deceased collector in the south of England.

Christie’s UK chairman says the closure of Christie’s South Kensington, the largest upheaval in the firm’s recent history, “has been a very painful decision for all but for the long-term health of the business it is right”.

Brexit, tax, business rates, employment rights and ivory top the list of issues for the art and antiques sector, readers have told Antiques Trade Gazette, as the general election looms this week.

Christie’s Chinese art department – shorn of the experience of Jeremy Morgan and Pedram Rasti (long-standing heads of department in both South Kensington and King Street who have recently left the firm) – will be led by Marco Almeida as international senior specialist and Kate Hunt, former head of sale at Christie’s South Kensington.

A trio of art dealers has chosen this summer’s revamped London Art Week to unveil new central London galleries.

Less than six months after they announced the discovery of an unpublished Leonardo drawing, the French auction house Tajan has revealed another major artistic discovery – a pair of paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) that last appeared in the late 18th century. Both the Leonardo and the Fragonards have been declared National Treasures by the French State.