Aguttes

With the Paris 'Temps Forts' high season now under way in the salerooms as riots rage in the streets, the temporary closure of some businesses did not put off bidders and buyers in the French capital.

French institutions exercised their right of pre-emption on a number of occasions as the gargantuan disposal of the Aristophil collections of historic manuscripts began last week.

Three bidders – one French, one Japanese and one Swedish – did battle for half an hour in the chase to acquire the skeleton of a new species of carnivorous dinosaur at a Paris auction this month.

The sale of a skeleton of a newly discovered species of carnivorous dinosaur to be sold by Aguttes auction house in Paris this June offers the opportunity to name it after the buyer.

The latest sale of Asian paintings held by Aguttes in Paris was led by a c.1930 work by the Chinese artist Sanyu (1901-66).

A rare complete mammoth skeleton from Siberia dating from the late Pleistocene era sold for a hammer price of €430,000 (£380,530) in a sale held by Aguttes in Lyons.

The Marquis de Sade’s manuscript, 120 Days of Sodom, and André Breton’s Surrealist Manifestos have been declared national treasure by the French government and have been withdrawn from a planned auction tomorrow.

A huge collection of manuscripts from investment scheme Aristophil will finally be resold in Paris after a two-year wait.

Parisian auctioneer Claude Aguttes has been banned from holding sales for two months following an investigation into the sale of a Russian painting at the Hôtel Drouot in October 2007.

This summer’s ‘Temps Fort’ sales in the French capital have thrown up an usually strong contingent of sculpture.

CLAUDE Aguttes, the dynamic auctioneer with salerooms at Neuilly and Lyons, has been named president of a new conseil de surveillance or supervisory board to oversee the running of the Hôtel Drouot.

A PIECE from a celebrated but elusive porcelain service that turned up at the latest sale at Aguttes in Paris understandably caused great excitement.

WITH the retreat from Dunkirk so much in the news at the moment, Aguttes have a particularly topical offering in their June 18 sale of manuscripts, postcards and historical documents.

THE June 11 Aguttes (20.33% buyer’s premium) sale was dominated by late 19th century pictures, including this 1891 Venetian Conversation, seen right, 2ft 5in x 3ft 4in (73 x 1.01m), by American artist Julius Leblanc Stewart (1855-1919), who often painted Venetian scenes – Kaiser Wilhelm II acquired his Sirocco Effects in 1895. The work here claimed a handsome €85,000 (£56,665).

PARIS: A PLETHORA of picture sales in Paris in December yielded some unexpectedly high prices but an erratic overall response, with an average take-up (by lot) of around 60 per cent. Results were stronger for Old Masters than for Modern Art, while the presence of buyers from across Europe helped offset the absence of Americans, deterred by the weak dollar.