International

THE added tax burden of Droit de Suite, which comes in at the beginning of next year, could be far worse than feared.

A SMALL Renoir portrait painted in 1913, with an estimated value of €170,000-200,000 (£120,000-140,000), was stolen from the Tajan premises in Paris shortly before it was to be offered at a sale on March 31.

TWO long-term directors of auctioneers Rosebery's are to leave southeast London to pursue a career offering antiques themed breaks from a Pyrenean château.

ILLUSTRATED top right is William Hole’s engraved title page for The Iliads from a copy of George Chapman’s first English translation of The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets and The Odysses.

WHILE Maastricht was, in the main, a showcase of Western art, the mood for all things Asian goes from strength to strength in New York and British experts are making the most of it.

WHAT is believed to be the first ever selling exhibition of Mongolian sculpture of the 17th and 18th centuries is staged by Mayfair Himalayan arts specialists Rossi & Rossi at Barbara Mathes Gallery on the third floor of the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, New York from March 28 to April 4.

Unusually large at 2ft 2in (66cm) high x 21in (53cm) in diameter and notable for its carved scallop shell intaglio, this outstanding George III mahogany and brass bound peat bucket shot to €145,000 (£106,600) at James Adam of Dublin on March 15.

THE management team of IFAE’s Palm Beach shows is to take on new responsibilities as Lorenzo Rudolf takes on a new role in the organisation.

Douglass & Aikman’s Almanack and Register for the Island of Jamaica..., printed in Kingston in 1780, contains a ‘Kalendar of Months, Sabbaths and Holy Days, the Hebrews or Jews observe & keep...’ as well as the names of Jewish holidays in English and Hebrew type and is one of the very earliest instances of Hebrew types being used in the Western hemisphere in publications intended to be used by Jews – Ann Woodland’s almanac of the previous year having been the first.

by Richard FalkinerThe calendar year gets off to an early start with sales in New York in January and then nothing much happens until spring is heralded by March. Nature abhors a vacuum and there is always somebody who fills the slot.

Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), the First World War leader known as The Tiger, and also famous as the editor of L’Aurore, who published Zola’s J’Accuse at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, was the subject of an unusual sale at Osenat (15% buyer’s premium) in Fontainebleau on February 13.

This year’s jewellery sales in the upscale Swiss winter resort of St Moritz – an annual fixture since 1995 – again fomented plenty of interest among the well-heeled private clientele in town at the height of the skiing season.

Annie Kevorkian was also the expert at a sale staged by Cannes Auction (19% buyer’s premium) at the Hôtel Martinez on La Croisette on February 20, dominated by a locally-consigned, single-owner collection of Ottoman ceramics.

Alex Neish is to donate a small collection of Judaica to a museum at the recently excavated and restored 12th century synagogue in Barcelona.

THE memory of a long-ago, short-lived trade agreement between England and France was rekindled by an extraordinary embroidered waistcoat that surfaced in the Deburaux & Associés sale in Paris on February 11, when it sold to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich for €5000 (£3470) plus 20.33% buyer’s premium.

THE future of the United States’ trade in Chinese works of art remains in limbo following a Washington committee hearing to debate a possible ban on imports.

The annual Paris Salon du Dessin will showcase 30 of the world’s premier drawings specialists at the Palais de la Bourse in Paris from March 16-21.

François Tajan, chairman and principal auctioneer of Tajan SA, France’s leading auction firm for many years, is quitting the company and will leave at the end of April.

MARCH in the small and ancient Dutch city of Maastricht is not just the hub of the international art world for the duration of the world’s top fair, TEFAF Maastricht. It has an impact which reverberates throughout the whole year and is a commercial event unparalleled in its quality and expertise.

WITH the emphasis this week on Europe, a reminder that life goes on elsewhere.