2016

The sentencing of former porters and auctioneers in Paris this week for the organised theft of thousands of artworks means the affair “belongs in the past”, the head of France’s auctioneering body told ATG.

The Parcours des Mondes, Paris' annual tribal trail and one of the biggest commercial gatherings in this collecting area, opened on September 6.

Bonhams have followed Christie’s in increasing their buyer’s fees by adjusting their premium thresholds.

The vendor of the ‘unworked’ elephant tusk trophy that Christie’s offered for sale against CITES rules in 2015, has himself been prosecuted.

Forum Auctions are to introduce a credit facility for buyers at future sales. In an exclusive arrangement with lending platform Unbolted, the new London firm will offer approved bidders the opportunity to pay for purchases with up to 90 days of interest-free finance.

A painting once owned by Sir Harry Veitch, founder of the Chelsea Flower Show, will be offered for sale at Bonhams’ in London later this month.

Buyers at a recent Fellows auction in Birmingham showed the strength in the market for amber.

Forty-two ceramic artists have been chosen from 100 applicants to exhibit at the three-day Ceramic Art York event which opens tomorrow at the city’s Museum Gardens.

A historic jewellers in Bolton is in the process of closing after reporting that the decline of the high street and the rise of the internet made trading impossible for them.

Islington Museum has issued a public plea to help it raise £20,000 to buy a screen collage by Joe Orton's lover and killer Kenneth Halliwell at auction later this month.

Pall Mall Art Advisors have closed their European operations, shutting their offices in St James’s, London and Amsterdam. Meanwhile former UK managing director Rachel Doerr has launched her own firm with six colleagues called Doerr Valuations.

Christie’s have adjusted their buyer’s premium thresholds, bringing them closer into line but not identical to the rates at rivals Sotheby’s.

Coin specialist Tom Eden is to retire from Morton & Eden after 47 years in the industry.

A much-exhibited early 19th century drawing, restituted in August to the heirs of a Holocaust victim, has immediately appeared for sale in Germany.

Former porters at the Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, have been sentenced to jail for the organised theft of thousands of artworks, a French court ruled on Tuesday September 6.

Martin Klosterfelde, a former Berlin-based contemporary art specialist and director at Phillips, has joined Sotheby’s.

As part of Alfies Antique Market’s week-long 40th anniversary celebrations, the Antiques Young Guns will provide a pop-up shop for their members at the centre.

The paintings of British watercolourist and architectural painter Samuel Prout comprise the 2017 loan exhibition for the BADA Fair.

Stamford dealer Stuart Porter has admitted to fraud charges in court following a long-running probe into his Lincolnshire antiques business.

The director of the Victoria & Albert Museum is to step down this autumn after five years in the role.