Christie's

WHERE polar exploration collectables are concerned, Christie’s have in recent years enjoyed, if not a monopoly, then certainly a strong grip on the auction market.

In the wake of their inaugural auction in Dubai in May, Christie’s are to make further investment in the fledgling Middle East market. New staff appointments and a sales calendar have been announced.

Christie’s are to merge their British and Old Master pictures departments in London.

CHRISTIE’s have announced that they are to sell the four remaining works by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that were part of the high profile Bloch-Bauer restitution case.

The power of one major collection to transform an auction company’s figures was dramatically shown this month when Christie’s France announced sales figures of €122.8m (including premiums) for the first half of 2006.

Christie’s took a major step into the world of virtual auctioneering last week with the launch of Christie’sLIVE, a real-time online bidding facility which they are to roll out over the next six months.

OF the many publications generated by Captain Cook’s exploits in the Pacific, the most curious is surely A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere...

Record turnover at London flagship sales but the buzz of the 1980s has gone

Compiled in the second half of the 15th century, the Fechtbuch of Hans Talhoffer (fl. 1435-82), the most celebrated and experienced fighting-master of the age, is a veritable encyclopaedia of medieval combat.

Given today’s obsession with celebrity, especially Royal celebrity, it was always on the cards that Christie’s sale last week of Princess Margaret’s jewellery, silver and other personal belongings was going to make much more than the £2m-3m predicted.

As if they will need it, some of the lots included in Christie’s June 13-14 sale of items from the collection of HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (1930-2002) have received a little posthumous pepping up.

Rare and significant works of art from the Old World will just occasionally surface, unrecorded, in the New.

A NEW record for Ming porcelain set by a king of Las Vegas provided the headline, but the real story of Christie’s anniversary series in Hong Kong was the rise and rise of Modern and Contemporary Asian art. This relatively new visitor to the global auction market has now eclipsed more traditional collecting disciplines as Christie’s biggest earner in Hong Kong.

Over 500 clients participated in Christie’s inaugural sale in Dubai last month at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel.

CHRISTIE’S May 17 sale of Partridge stock in New York went according to plan, with a hammer total of $12.5m (£6.65m).

Hedge funds continue to stake a claim on big-ticket names

As ATG went to press, the best-selling work of art in last week’s series of Islamic sales in London was this impressive 16in (40cm) diameter blue and white Iznik pottery dish, right, offered at Christie’s on April 4.

WHAT'S up Down Under? The very day Christie’s announce that they are downsizing in Australia by ceasing to hold sales there, Bonhams and Goodman say they are expanding operations.

New buyers help records tumble as London reinforces its importance

Alongside the Americana offered in the New York salerooms earlier this month, there was a strong representation of early English ceramics. Sotheby’s January 20 sale of the pottery collection of Harriet Carlton Goldweitz was followed the next day by Christie’s auction of the Mrs J. Insley Blair collection, which included some key Staffordshire productions alongside its blue chip American furnishings.