Christie's

The eagerly anticipated auction of Underground posters direct from the archives of London Transport Museum was a sell-out at Christie’s South Kensington earlier this month.

This year’s Frieze week auction totals in London were largely consistent with 2011, but the much-publicised sale of Eric Clapton’s prize abstract by Gerhard Richter (b.1932) proved crucial in bolstering the overall figures.

Fine and unusual English guns made for Indian princes formed the most lucrative sub-section of Holt’s latest London sale.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has struck an exclusive deal with Christie’s to sell its enormous holdings of works from the artist’s estate.

Christie’s South Kensington are staging an auction of original Underground posters to be sold on behalf of the London Transport Museum on October 4.

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season of American book and manuscript sales culminated when Christie’s New York saw a record for any American book or historical document.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