Christie's

Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ came to the block at just the right time for Sotheby’s when it set the record for anything ever sold at auction.

Christie’s first half results for 2012 show that the focus of competition at the top end of the international auction business remains the private sales market and online auctions.

Just three copies of the 1640, first English edition of Nicholas Machiavelli’s short treatise on political leadership have come to auction in this century, the last of them in 2005.

The strength and depth of the Picasso ceramics market was put to the test when Christie’s South Kensington offered the vast 543-lot Madoura Collection.

A string of record prices at the latest Old Master sales in London helped the sector to its highest total ever for an auction series.

Setting a record for the artist and making one the highest prices ever seen for a British picture, John Constable's ‘The Lock’ took £20m at Christie’s evening sale on July 3.

The Madoura Collection lived up to its billing as the single most important sale dedicated to Picasso ceramics ever held when it went under the hammer at Christie’s South Kensington.

Highly lucrative totals, a record sale and a selection of unprecedented prices seen for individual artists – the Contemporary art market seemed to carry on regardless in London last week.

What has been a rich summer season of American book and manuscript sales culminated when Christie’s New York saw a record for any American book or historical document.

Christie’s are broadening their range of activity by launching their first online-only sale, Signature Cellars, an auction of fine and rare wines that will be open for bidding from August 6 to 20.

Lalique glass is one of those areas that has an international appeal with the best pieces selling strongly wherever they crop up.

In response to the exhibition of The Lock at the Royal Academy in 1824, The Morning Post wrote: “Mr Constable contributes a landscape composition which for depth, sparkling light, freshness and vigorous effect, exceeds any of his works.” Christie’s will offer the picture for sale as part of their Old Master & British Paintings evening sale on July 3.

The high point of interest in this spring’s antiquities sales was the Groppi Collection – a single-owner sale at Christie’s South Kensington of ancient Egyptian artefacts.

Soon after the gallery doors close at the BRUNEAF fair in Brussels on June 10 all eyes turn to Paris where Christie’s and Sotheby’s will hold major African and Oceanic sales on succeeding days.

A string of record prices for leading names in the Contemporary art market saw the amount of money raised in the latest New York auction series heading back to boom-time levels.

Setting a record any post-War work of art ever sold at auction, Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) oil on canvas 'Orange, Red, Yellow' sold for $77.5m (£50m) at Christie’s Contemporary art evening sale on May 8.

LARGE new gallery spaces in Hong Kong look set to provide the battleground in the competition for private treaty sales between Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

CHRISTIE’S South Kensington has been forced to postpone their sale of the Raglan Collection at the 11th hour after a legal dispute over the estate resulted in a court injunction.

“THERE shall be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm, and one measure of ale and one measure of corn – namely, the London quart.”

David Hockney (b.1937) and the late Lucian Freud (1922-2011) have captured the public imagination at the moment.