Antique Valuations For UK Probate

Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) is the James Cook of France, his ship L'Astrolabe its Endeavour. Like Cook he sailed three times to the Pacific. He too died in a picturesque way. There are however some important differences. For example, Cook is the reserved Yorkshireman who let his Read more [...]

China, with all its history, its varied nationalities and even more varied landscape, for thousands of years has been a source of fascination to westerners. In that one country, one can pass from tropical jungles in the south to icy steppes in the far north, endless dusty hills in the centre and the Read more [...]

But cautiously will taste its stores reveal; Its greatest art is aptly to conceal; To lead, with secret guile, the prying sight To where component parts may best unite And form one beauteous, nicely blended whole, To charm the eye and captivate the soul. Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824), 1795 Mid Read more [...]

Never in the history of English art and fashion have ceramics been as important as they were to the Aesthetic Movement. Aestheticism was the most prominent movement in the fine and applied arts of the late nineteenth century and one of its great events was the exhibition of Sir Herbert Thompson's Read more [...]

While it is true that Paris is best known for the Eiffel Tower and the Mona Lisa, not to mention Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides, it also happens to boast one of the largest public collections of Jewish art and religious artifacts in Western Europe, as well as a stunning house museum owned by a little-known Read more [...]

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, owns one of the most famous carpets in the world, the Ardabil Carpet. This sixteenth-century masterpiece in silk and wool is one of the most important works in LACMA's collection. The carpet is being displayed from 22 January until 11 May 2004, for the first Read more [...]

The maker's mark of a silversmith on a silver object enables a collector to identify with confidence the actual maker of the object, just as with a painter's signature on a painting. Unlike the painter's signature, which can appear distinctly for all to see, the silversmith's mark is usually discreet: Read more [...]

Miniatures hand-painted on porcelain blanks have been recognised as a specialised area of European art and some overseas work mounted as brooches has been collected in Australia. Astute collectors are now seeking out similar items hand-painted in Australia. Of particular interest are small porcelain Read more [...]

I have been collecting Chinese paintings since I moved to Hong Kong in the mid 1980s. First Sotheby's and then Christie's opened up small offices in the Central business district and started holding auctions in the downtown hotels. There were a number of galleries and antique dealers in Hollywood Road Read more [...]

Today, Van Gogh's paintings fetch ludicrous prices at auction and yet during his lifetime he would have been happy to give his pictures away. The public regarded his work as strange and wayward and legend has it that he sold only one painting during his lifetime, 'The red vineyard', now in the Pushkin Read more [...]