Sotheby's

Eric Bijzet has become the latest expert to leave Sotheby’s as he plans to set up on his own as a dealer back home in Amsterdam.

Following the release of Sotheby’s disappointing 2016 first-quarter earnings, the financial press was awash with speculation of a new investor.

Just under $1.2bn changed hands at the top-end of the art market in New York this week as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips all held their Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions over seven days for the first time. Here is ATG’s pick of individual highlights sold across the week.

Sotheby’s has announced the appointment of two new co-European chairmen as well as the establishment of a new strategy board which is set to drive growth.

An important collection of early chess pieces will be offered as part of Sotheby’s Islamic sale in London on April 20.

The shake-up at Sotheby’s continued last week as more key senior employees – including Henry Wyndham – depart the company.

Sotheby’s are offering 180 lots of English and continental furniture and works of art from the ‘public and private collections’ of Alan Rubin, director of London and Paris dealership Pelham Galleries.

Melanie Clore, Sotheby’s European chairman and co-chairman of Impressionist & Modern art, is leaving at the end of February after 35 years at the auction house.

Sotheby’s London will be showing hundreds of previously unseen jewellery drawings in a one-off exhibition from February 18-March 8, sourced from a privately owned collection of jewellery and silver.

The Contemporary art market survived better than many had expected at the London auction series last week.

In a week of varying results, the Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's London took £228.8m with premium in total (compared with £381.4m for the equivalent series last year).

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on a pair of 17th century Italian ebony, ormolu and hardstone inlaid cabinets in the hope that they can be saved for the nation.

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s saw sales fall in 2015, a sign that the art market may be slowing.

Sotheby’s recent sale of royal and aristocratic heirlooms, titled Of Royal and Noble Descent, included this maiolica istoriato charger.

Sotheby’s are following Christie’s by staging their flagship New York May auctions of Impressionist & Modern art and Contemporary art in a single week.

The centrepiece of Sotheby’s April auction series in Hong Kong will be the collection of around 100 lots of Chinese porcelain spanning the Tang to Qing dynasties that was formed by the British collector Roger Pilkington.

The competition between auction houses to expand their private sales operations took a new twist with the announcement last week that Sotheby’s had bought art advisory firm Art Agency, Partners (AAP).

Sotheby’s have announced that Mario Tavella, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and European head of single-owner collections, will become président directeur général of Sotheby’s France.

The market for traditional antiques ended 2015 on a high with a series of spectacular individual prices posted in London and New York in mid-December.

Sotheby’s are to make some 80 positions redundant as part of the company’s efforts to reduce costs.