Christie's

THE anticipated highlight of Christie’s ‘Exceptional Sale’ on July 7, a rediscovered bronze by Adriaen de Vries (d.1626), was withdrawn from sale at the last minute.

CHRISTIE’S chairman Edward Dolman is leaving the company to join the Board of Trustees of the Qatar Museums Authority.

PAINTINGS may have provided the large bulk of the money raised in last week’s Russian sales, but the auctions also provided the usual glut of works of art, Fabergé and icons.

THE latest Modern British art sale at Christie's in London set a series of new benchmarks for the sector.

IN a private sale negotiated by Christie’s, the Victoria and Albert Museum has acquired this remarkable 16th century tankard made for the Ottoman court.

THE mammoth, 875-lot, three-day sale from the collections of the Château de Gourdon staged by Christie's in Paris closed last week closed having raised a hammer total of €35.1m (£31.9m).

CHRISTIE’S chief operating officer, Lisa King, has resigned from the firm after only a year in her new role.

THE saga of the portrait sold by Christie’s in 1998 as ‘19th century German’, but now claimed as a long-lost work by Leonardo da Vinci, has taken a new turn following the dismissal of the complaint against Christie’s lodged by the work’s consignor.

A TOUCH of Bohemian rhapsody entered Christie’s South Kensington’s January 25 ‘Interiors’ sale.

LONDON’S latest series of Contemporary art sales put in a robust performance. Auctioneers posted high selling rates and saw the greatest depth of bidding since the art market downturn two years ago.

CHRISTIE’S have decided to re-introduce dedicated 19th century European art sales, with the first taking place in London on June 15.

CHRISTIE’S registered a 53% rise in global auction sales to achieve a record premium-inclusive total of £3.3bn/$5bn for 2010.

AUCTION turnover figures for Paris in 2010 show the city’s three major firms – Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Artcurial – gaining market share at the expense of crisis-ridden Drouot.

OFFERED this month at Christie's New York, a copy of Abel Buell's 1784 New and Correct Map of the United States of America... became the most expensive map ever sold at auction.

LIMITED interest on the two star lots meant the best contests at this month’s Old Master series in London came for more attractively pitched works by less familiar names.

LAUNCHED by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak from the garage of Jobs’ parents home in July, 1976 – a month in which America’s bicentennial celebrations were the big news story – the Apple I was in fact the start of another revolution.

RECORD prices for three European artists helped lift the latest round of Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York. With the market much more selective since the downturn two years ago and most of the competition focusing on the biggest trophy lots, the new saleroom highs for Henri Matisse, Juan Gris and Amedeo Modigliani provided further evidence of recovery at the top end.

SPECULATION over a possible takeover of Christie’s by the Qatari royal family has intensified after the Emir publicly confirmed his interest in acquiring the auction house.

“I LOOK upon [it] with equal amazement, as I do upon St. Paul’s Cathedral; each the work of one man, each the work of an Englishman”.

Until May this year it was still in the ground in a Cumbrian field. Just five months later it was under the auctioneers’ hammer. Last week this Roman bronze cavalry parade helmet dating from the 1st-2nd century AD, sold for £2m (plus premium) to an anonymous UK private telephone bidder.