Christie's

THE thwack of the polo mallet was replaced by the repeated thud of the gavel earlier this month at the Cowdray estate in West Sussex, celebrated as one of the great British polo venues and the seat of the Viscount Cowdray.

The major houses’ latest New York Asian series highlighted the dominance of the Chinese art market.

BILLED as the largest and most important country house auction of the year, Christie's three-day sale at Cowdray Park in West Sussex, netted £6.4m hammer against a £5m top estimate.

THE competition over private treaty sales headlines Sotheby’s and Christie’s latest set of results which cover the first half of 2011.

THE US Appeals Court has upheld the New York District Court ruling in Christie’s favour in the dispute over a long-lost work thought to be by Leonardo da Vinci.

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highlight of Christie’s ‘Exceptional Sale’ on July 7, a rediscovered bronze by Adriaen de Vries (d.1626), was withdrawn from sale at the last minute.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