International

WITH their much-publicised US$30m Van Gogh, London and New York art dealers Dickinson had one of the most talked-about works at TEFAF Maastricht which closed on Sunday, March 16.

SPINK have taken another step in their bid to become global brand leaders in their field with another major acquisition in the United States. Last week they announced the purchase of New York’s oldest established coins dealers and auctioneers, R.M. Smythe & Company.

The 17.9m euro premium-inclusive total generated by Christie’s two-day sale of the ‘hidden’ collection of Charles Gillot in Paris last week may have wildly surpassed the auctioneers’ 5m euro predictions, but the performance of the 476-lot auction nonetheless ran pretty much along predicted lines.

WHEN bidders turned up at the first Indian Premier League cricket player auction in Mumbai last month, it was an antiques auctioneer from England they found on the rostrum.

A FRAUDSTER has tricked a US auction house into handing over a valuable Japanese artwork by posing as the representative of the buyer, an English dealer. It is thought they targeted the piece after realising that it was worth a great deal more than it sold for.

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

ARTINSURE have secured an arrangement to act as specialist insurance product provider to the South African Antique Dealers’ Association.

Bonhams staged their first auction in France on February 9 with a sale of vintage automobiles at the Retromobile car fair in Paris.

Widespread concern over warrants that can ignore human rights

Dmg World Media are bringing together their extensive American art and antiques fairs network under a new management division based in San Francisco called Art & Antiques Fairs, North America.

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.

Bonhams have announced the location of two major new salerooms – in Edinburgh and New York.

Adams of Dublin were once again top of the Irish rooms posting a €19.4m (£14.6m) hammer turnover for 2007.

For the first time, a trio of auction firms pulled clear of the field in Paris in 2007.

The last privately owned copy of Magna Carta will remain in the USA after its $19m (£9.8m) purchase by billionaire David Rubenstein.

London-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton have changed the dates and venue of their 13th annual International Asian Art Fair in New York.

BUSINESS from China increased fivefold for the Fine Arts Society in 2007, helping to bring the company the highest turnover in their 131-year history.

THE new year will see a new auction house open in India – with a wide remit to develop the domestic and international markets.

There is nothing quite like dying young for genius to acquire immortality. An object lesson in this came with the predictably frantic bidding from the four corners of the world at the sale of some effects once belonging to Maria Callas. The total of €1.3m (£900,000) trebled expectations.

Christie’s held the first auction of spirits in New York since Prohibition on December 8.