International

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.

Bonhams are expanding their existing New York presence by taking gallery space at the Fuller Building, 595 Madison Ave. The new space will enable Bonhams to hold regular sales in New York beginning in the summer.

Carl Richard Lepsius led a well prepared Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842-45 and as well as surveying the monuments, sent back some 15,000 antiquities to Berlin.

Two unfamiliar French artists, Gustave Cariot and André Marchand, figured strongly at Tajan’s Modern art sale on January 31.

BEST known for their period silver by the master English silversmiths, Mayfair dealers Marks Antiques are also making a name for themselves with Fabergé, and, on February 18 and 19, hold a selling Fabergé exhibition at Martyn Cook Antiques, Queen Street, Woollahra, Sydney.

A remarkable array of art and antiques seized by the High Court from an Austrian businessman convicted of fraud were sold by a small-scale Buckinghamshire auctioneer last week.

A New York jury has ruled in a legal case that has locked the horns of the two biggest names in real-time Internet bidding.

ANOTHER feature of this early winter New York season is the sales held by Baldwin’s Auctions, Dmitry Markov and Münzen und Medaillen (New York branch) (all 15% buyer’s premium).

“FAIRS here are not as big by any means as those in the UK. The biggest regular fairs would have between 30 and 45 dealers and even the annual equivalent of a LAPADA fair would only have about 40 dealers or so.”

Fine Art Auctioneer Dr. Jürgen Fischer in Heilbronn, Germany has announced an important forthcoming sale of European and Studio Glass to be held on 11th and 12th March 2005.

IT is never too early for some advance news of the world’s top fair, TEFAF Maastricht, which will run in the Dutch city from March 4 to 13 with the private preview on March 3. So here is a sample of what to expect on the stand of Dutch Chinese specialists Vanderven & Vanderven, who have been with the fair since its inception.

SEVEN-figure prices are rare in continental Europe, so there was jubilation in Cologne when a work by Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) climbed to €1.2m (£857,000) at Lempertz (22.04% buyer’s premium) on December 4.