International

Over 500 clients participated in Christie’s inaugural sale in Dubai last month at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel.

“It is indeed a lovely spot of earth, lonely and secluded; the wood full of game, the lake full of fish, and nature full of poetry.” Luggala, as so eloquently observed by Hermann, Prince von Pückler-Muskau after a visit in 1828, is one of the most beautiful private estates in Ireland.

AUSTRALIA have rejected Droit de Suite.

The ownership of this c.1760 Irish mahogany side table was traced by the late Sir Charles Brett, a prominent Ulster attorney and leading Irish historian, to his descendent Charles Brett of Belfast (1752-1829). He was a wine merchant in Belfast and Bordeaux in the 1780s and his many business concerns included interests in the Belfast Glass Works, Distillery, Chamber of Commerce and Shipping.

CHRISTIE’S May 17 sale of Partridge stock in New York went according to plan, with a hammer total of $12.5m (£6.65m).

THE world stamp market is reeling this week after what could prove to be a €5bn pyramid selling scheme was unmasked in Spain.

Hedge funds continue to stake a claim on big-ticket names

Pablo Picasso has become the ultimate luxury brand. On May 3 at Sotheby’s New York Picasso’s rare and iconic 1941 portrait, Dora Maar au chat, became the world’s second most expensive painting when it sold for $85m (£48.3m) to a mystery buyer in the room, widely presumed to be representing a Russian oligarch.

THE value of UK exports of antiques to Hong Kong almost trebled in 2005 according to the latest Customs figures.

THE Australian government has acted to protect indigenous artists following media reports that exposed exploitation and corruption in the Aboriginal art world.

A POWERFUL group of top-end American dealers have voiced opposition to the British Antique Dealers’ Association’s decision to stage a 50-stand fair at Sotheby’s New York early next year.

The current boom in the market for Chinese Contemporary paintings could hardly be better illustrated than by the way sale statistics have been leapfrogging around the globe in the last couple of weeks.

The enormous potential of the market for contemporary Chinese art was dramatically underlined by almost frenzied scenes at Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) eagerly awaited March 31 Contemporary Art Asia sale in New York.

50-stand event planned at Sotheby’s

WHAT'S up Down Under? The very day Christie’s announce that they are downsizing in Australia by ceasing to hold sales there, Bonhams and Goodman say they are expanding operations.

A cache of William Blake watercolours, unearthed in a Glasgow bookshop five years ago, are to be sold in New York after attempts to keep them together in the United Kingdom have failed.

Hidden away in a bank vault for over 80 years, the fabled Damon Collection of rare coins, medals and bank notes will fall under the hammer in March.

Tiffany the jewellers are suing eBay in a case that challenges the very formula that has made the online giant such a success.

A revamp of Cologne’s early spring fairs fest sees the amalgamation of the city’s three February fairs into one new five-day event to be held a week earlier in the year.

Alongside the Americana offered in the New York salerooms earlier this month, there was a strong representation of early English ceramics. Sotheby’s January 20 sale of the pottery collection of Harriet Carlton Goldweitz was followed the next day by Christie’s auction of the Mrs J. Insley Blair collection, which included some key Staffordshire productions alongside its blue chip American furnishings.