Antiques 2.0 – Global network for antiques market professionals

Dear Sir/Madame,

With over 10 years of experience in art and antiques information services, we know how important it is to make and cultivate business relationships.

We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to join the global society of antiques market professionals and lovers like yourself in the new but fast growing antiques network Antiques20.

With the economic situation in the world and antiques market in particular, meeting face-to-face has become more difficult due to the tight marketing and travel budgets, and most general networking sites are too broad in scope to be of use.

Antiques20 affords you the opportunity to communicate in a businesslike and professional setting, also providing you with the useful tools like online antiques catalogues, auctions and e-magazines. Registering at Antiques20 is easy and available to you at no cost.

We believe that Antiques20 can become the best networking resource available to antiques market, and we hope that you will find its advantages for yourself and your business. Please, take a moment to visit the site. If you have any questions or comments, you can always contact us by email on the site.

Best regards,
Antiques 2.0 Executive Team

Heroes or villains? A unique exhibition at the BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair

A unique loan exhibition from one of the world’s greatest private collections of celebrity memorabilia assembled by David Gainsborough Roberts is to go on show at The BADA Antiques & Fine Art Fair, which will take place from 17-23 March 2010 at the Duke of York Square, off Sloane Square, London SW3. Entitled Heroes or Villains?, the exhibition will include historic items that belonged to some of the most celebrated and infamous figures of the past two centuries. In some cases our view of them has changed with time and in others the debate over their reputation is still raging. The exhibition will examine the nature of heroism and villainy through these extraordinary and often very personal pieces.

Heroes or Villains? has been made possible by the generosity of Mr Roberts, who lives in Jersey. He began collecting celebrity memorabilia in 1991 and now owns almost 3,000 items that once belonged to royalty, film stars, murderers, gangsters, rock and pop singers, dictators, war heroes and others who have either shaped or enlivened world history.

Bigger and better than ever befor – TEFAF Maastricht 12-21 March 2010

TEFAF Maastricht, the world’s most influential art and antiques fair, will have a record number of 260 exhibitors from 17 countries when the 23rd edition opens at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre) in the southern Netherlands from 12-21 March 2010. The European Fine Art Fair will reinforce its reputation for quality with exhibitors bringing only the very finest art and antiques all of which will be rigorously vetted by teams of experts. It will expand by introducing TEFAF on Paper, a new section devoted entirely to works on paper. The latest in a series of groundbreaking reports specially prepared for TEFAF will examine how the international art market has fared during the economic recession.

Magnificent Works of Art

Exhibitors at TEFAF will show some 30,000 works of art and antiques, including paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, furniture, classical antiquities, illuminated manuscripts, jewellery, textiles, porcelain, glass, silver, design and other works of art. Every era from classical antiquity to the 21st century will be represented.

Technology Auction Ends on a High Note!

Office antiques were once again the highlight of a successful sale of Vintage Technology at Auction Team Breker in Cologne, Germany. Diversity is something of a trademark at Breker’s sales. There is one auction, but many audiences, making the preview a relaxed and sociable event for collectors, with the opportunity to see (and hear) more than six hundred lots of typewriters, telegraphs, telephones, microscopes, musical boxes and mechanical toys. The auction was conducted bilingually in English and German by Marco Kroeger.
The day’s top lot was an historically important 10-rotor “Enigma ciphering machine” (lot 33), which sold to an American bidder for Euro (€) 34,430.- (US$ 51,300.- /GBP 30,650.-). Continuing in the theme of encoded messages, an attractive “Edison stock ticker telegraph” (lot 39) fetched
Euro (€) 3,940.- (US$ 5,870.- / GBP 3,500.-), and a rare French ciphering machine, the
“Ideal Codigraph” (lot 30), brought Euro (€) 2,830.- (US$ 4,200.- / GBP 2,520.-).

Tremendous success for the Special auction sale Russian Coins at Gorny & Mosch

On October 16^th, 2009, the Gorny & Mosch concluded a successful auction sale week: in the four sales (180-183) roughly 5.700 lots were on offer altogether ranging from the earliest coins from antiquity to modern Euro coinages. The overall result was approximately 4.1 million Euros.* Gorny & Mosch once again asserted its rank as German market leader in ancient and Russian coins. As was to be expected auction sale 183 (Russia) attracted especially wide interest.

Auction sale 183 – Russia

Sale 183 was split into two parts: on Thursday high-quality coins and medals from the Russian tsar era were put up for auction which came from the collections of different suppliers. For Friday the auction of the Russian copper coin collection of the Norwegian Tom Willy Bakken was scheduled in cooperation with Oslo Mynthandel – Bakken personally did the honors and was happy to sign autographs.

Cleveland Museum returns 14 works

Rome, July 2 – Culture Minister Sandro Bondi on Thursday presented 14 antiquities returned to Italy by the Cleveland Museum of Art after the government proved that the works had been looted or stolen.

The returns include a bronze statuette of an archer dating from 900-700 BC Sardinia, silver bracelets stolen from the grave of an Etruscan woman, an Attic drinking vessel in the shape of a mule’s head and a four-foot-high wine vessel from Puglia dating to the 4th century BC that shows Trojan prince Hector leaving for battle.

Grosvenor House fair scrapped after 75 years: dealers react

The Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, London’s grandest and most traditional art fair, is closing down after 75 years. The surprise announcement came less than two weeks after this year’s fair (11-17 June), which was heralded as a success despite the difficult financial circumstances.

“This is an iconic loss—it was the London art world’s Wimbledon,” historical portrait specialist Philip Mould told The Art Newspaper. “A week ago we were being encouraged to fill in our forms for next year, and now we’re told it’s not happening again.”

‘Tir Solas’ is the new exhibition of paintings by artists Ruth Molloy

‘Tir Solas’ is the new exhibition of paintings by artists Ruth Molloy and Ross Stewart opening at the Russell Gallery on Saturday 11 of July @ 6pm. It will be launched by Paidraic O’Maille, renowned Business Consultant from Galway. The Exhibition will continue until the 9th of August.

This will be one of the finest collections of paintings hanging on the walls of the Russell Gallery this year: an enchanting combination of two artists who perfectly capture the light and the mood of the Irish Landscape, descriptive and evocative at the same time.
The finished pieces are gestural paintings tracing the land with the atmosphere of imagined places. They convey a great energy, the energy of exploration of the creative process, of hiding and revealing precious elements, of working to achieve
the ultimate balance or tension. The result is superb.

Widower finds forgotten artworks worth £100,000 in attic

The collection of 100 paintings had been hidden away in Max Block’s loft after they were passed onto him 20 years ago by his late mother.

When the retired research chemist’s wife Etta died last year, Dr Block wanted to downsize and move home – and decided to insulate the loft to help with the house sale.

Christie's Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art in London Realises $60.4 Million

A “musketeer” painted by Pablo Picasso was one of the big attractions at an auction of impressionist and modern art at Christie’s held in London, where it sold for 5.7 million pounds ($9.3 million).

The 1969 work, “Homme a l’Epee,” was the second most expensive lot of the session, after Monet’s “Au Parc Monceau,” that went for 6.3 million pounds ($10.3 million).