Newcastle upon Tyne

The centrepiece of Anderson & Garland’s sale in Westerhope, near Newcastle, last month was the eclectic Walton Temple collection.

A Nobel Peace Prize medal stolen from the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House in Newcastle is still missing despite a 21-year-old man being jailed for the theft.

Collectables specialist Fred Wyrley-Birch at Anderson & Garland was seriously impressed by this micromosaic plaque, offered for sale at Westerhope, near Newcastle in their latest fine art sale. And so were buyers.

Rare items stolen during a robbery at the Lord Mayor of Newcastle’s Mansion House include a gold Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the 1930s to Arthur Henderson, a pioneer of the Labour Party and campaigner for disarmament.

A pair of rugs signed Francis Bacon, and thought to relate to the artist’s early career as an interior decorator, have been withdrawn from sale for the second time in three years.

This Lalique ‘cire perdue’ vase was discovered by Anderson & Garland in a house just outside of Morpeth, Northumberland during a routine probate valuation.

THE uplifting story of how West Auckland FC won ‘the first world cup’ has gone down in the annals of English football.

THE year 2010 ended as it began with spectacular prices for Chinese works of art.

“THE high point of my career,” was how auctioneer John Anderson described his most recent sale. He had waited 30 years but finally got the chance to offer the Lionel Jacobson collection at Anderson & Garland on March 11-13.

JUDITH Lidell is celebrating the success of her first vintage fashion fair on her home patch of Newcastle-on-Tyne on Sunday November 19.

Before embarking on his 1907-09 expedition to the Antarctic, Ernest Shackleton sent Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild on a crash course in printing and had a press and associated materials loaded onto the Nimrod.

AMONG the great grails of Maling collecting are the so-called Urbino style vases: 16in (41cm) high exhibition pieces c.1945 decorated in relief with a celebrated moment from classical mythology by Lucien Boullemeir to a design by Norman Carling. The scene shows Perseus holding aloft the Medusa’s head to petrify the sea monster and save the beautiful Andromeda, who is chained to the rocky shore.

JACK Vettriano (b.1951) is not an artist normally associated with the North East of England, but one of the lesser known facts about Britain’s Most Popular Artist is that one of his first one-man exhibitions, if not the first, was held at the Corrymella Scott Gallery in Jesmond, an upmarket suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1992.

GRAHAM Smith of Graham Smith Antiques in Jesmond, Newcastle has joined LAPADA’s board of directors. He started his own business in 1999 after 27 years working with Owen Humble Antiques.

FOR the third year running, Harrogate-based Galloway Antiques Fairs hold their Gosforth Park Antiques Fair at Brandling House, Newcastle upon Tyne.

“WHEN Mr Woods came into our saleroom and invited us to see his collection,” said Anderson & Garland’s collectables specialist John Anderson, “we just couldn’t believe that such a unique selection of memorabilia could have been sitting in a house only a dozen miles from our premises.”

THE Newcastle upon Tyne auctioneers Anderson & Garland are to relocate their second-string saleroom to a new purpose-built building at Westerhope. The firm took over Pattisons Rooms at Crawcrook near Gateshead in 1983 where for 20 years they have held their fortnightly sales of Victorian and later furniture and effects supporting the quarterly sales held at Marlborough House in the city centre.

With the retirement at the end of this month of the Alnwick auctioneer Ian Robertson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne auctioneers Anderson & Garland are to assume control of the 40-year-old business.

There were some interesting signs of the times when the superbly preserved Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) canvas, Autumn Gold, right, came under the hammer with an estimate of £40,000-70,000 on the first day of the Newcastle sale held by Anderson & Garland (15% buyer’s premium) on June 17-20.

UK: Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, is the usual venue for Jim Railton's, Gosforth, spring sale, but the predations of Foot and Mouth meant that it had to be relocated to one of the smarter districts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.