Christie's

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.

WHILE the sale of artworks and ephemera formerly owned by the Lehman Brothers bank had a strange attraction for souvenir hunters and contemporary art dealers, it was, perhaps more surprisingly, also of interest for enthusiasts of marine art.

CHRISTIE’S have announced some major management changes at senior level with the promotion of Edward Dolman from CEO to chairman of Christie’s International plc and the appointment of Steven Pleshette Murphy to succeed him as the new CEO.

THIS exquisite example of Roman metalwork, a late 1st to mid 3rd century bronze parade helmet with its haunting face mask, represented the find of a lifetime for a Cumbrian metal detectorist when it was unearthed in May of this year.

WITH the new auction season getting underway, the London houses have been rushing to announce their star lots as the treasures from aristocratic collections continue to emerge in the saleroom.

TECHNOLOGY is increasingly important in the art market but a pair of oils by the Anglo-Australian artist William Blamire Young (1862-1935), is believed to be the first significant work identified and consigned to auction through Christie’s iPhone application.

CHRISTIE’S have announced worldwide sales of £1.7bn ($2.57m) for the first half of 2010 – 46 per cent up on the same period for 2009.

CHRISTIE’S are launching a fair during Frieze week for dealers and publishers specialising in contemporary editions. The auctioneers' South Kensington saleroom will be given over to the event, titled Multiplied, focused primarily on prints, photography, sculpture and artists’ books.

HAD it not been for the headline-grabbing and record-breaking J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), the latest Old Master auctions in London would have seemed a bit flat.

THE latest Contemporary art sales in London were a little flatter than expected, but Modern British art generated a batch of stand-out prices.

THE latest Impressionist & Modern art auction series in London saw rising returns for the salerooms but buyers reacted unfavourably to heavy estimates on the most expensive works.

HOUSE contents sales always create a frisson of excitement. Alongside the stars of the show, big-ticket pieces that comes trailing clouds of pre-sale publicity, there is the potential thrill of the unexpected, the serendipitous attractions of the less elevated contents of cellar, outhouse and attic, which hold out the possibility of a bargain.

IT may have been an exceptional piece that generated an equally exceptional level of presale interest but, even still, few people present at Christie's Paris for the sale of Amedeo Modigliai's (1884-1920) Tête were expecting it to become the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in France.

FROM perfume bottles and menu holders to vases and car mascots, the glass creations of René Lalique remain consistently appealing to a varied gamut of buyers.

THE troubled internet entrepreneur and art collector Halsey Minor, who in March was ordered to hand over $6.6m for unpaid items ‘bought’ at Sotheby’s, has won a parallel legal battle with Christie’s.

THE first slice of the Longridge collection of early British pottery and European vernacular works of art, formed over 30 years by American Syd Levethan, was sold in two sessions for £2.93m by Christie's in King Street on June 10-11.