Sotheby's

CONTEMPORARY art may still be heading skywards, but the imminent buyer’s premium rate increases – and Sotheby’s latest set of results – show that pressure at the margins is as intense as ever.

As of June 1, Sotheby’s auctions in New York and London will be subject to new buyer’s premium thresholds that will hit further buyers of ‘middle range’ art and antiques.

THE gargantuan sums of money being spent at the top end of the contemporary art market continued unabated as the latest sales series in New York saw a staggering overall premium-inclusive total of $990m.

Fears that New York’s flagship May sales might usher in a market meltdown were allayed last week as Sotheby’s and Christie’s posted solid results for Impressionist and Modern art.

Two auctioneers, two Gérôme sculptures, but two very different estimates

London’s latest series of Islamic auctions, held from April 7-11, produced a series of record-breaking statistics. The result of the week came at Sotheby’s on April 9 when a 14 1/2in (37cm) long iron and copper key to the ka’ba, the holiest place in the Islamic world, sold for £8.2m, establishing a new auction high for any Islamic work of art.

An image that may rewrite the history of photography has been withdrawn from a Sotheby’s New York sale pending further research.

Kensington Church Street dealer Paul Reeves did a double-take at Sotheby’s earlier this month. As well as curating their March 20 mixed-owner decorative arts sale titled The Best of British, he also mounted a week-long selling exhibition of his own stock under the same title in their Bond Street Galleries.

Two works by big league Impressionists dating from the early years of the movement are in the spotlight this spring.

SOTHEBY’S have closed the gap between themselves and Christie’s on worldwide sales in 2007, announcing a record $6.2bn of consoldiated sales to Christie’s $6.3bn.

THE global contemporary art market received an important shot in the arm in London last week as Sotheby's set the highest total ever seen for a contemporary art sale in Europe.

Sotheby’s have announced the private treaty sale of a Guarneri del Gesu violin to the Russian businessman and collector, Maxim Viktorov.

Knock-on effect of turbulence in money markets is less dramatic than feared at art auctions

SOTHEBY’S and Christie’s have launched an unprecedented attack on France’s auction laws in a bid to halt Paris’s decades-long decline as a market force.

SOTHEBY’S have released interim headline sales figures for 2007, which show worldwide auction totals up 44 per cent on 2006 at $5.4bn.

Sotheby’s have agreed to sponsor Tate Britain’s Duveens Commission, thereby allowing this site-specific sculpture commission to become an annual rather than a biennial event.

This massive silver-gilt shield of Achilles, by Rundell, Bridge & Rundell of London, lost to scholars for the better part of the 20th century, appeared at Sotheby's on December 18 after resurfacing in Belgium.

It is only 3.25in (8cm) high, but it made more than any sculpture or antiquity ever offered at auction.

Gagosian’s bid gives Sotheby’s new heart

Aggressive estimates rather than a fallout from credit-market losses were responsible for the first ‘wobble’ in the international art market, say Sotheby’s.