Europe

Two large Old Master paintings worth up to €180,000 (£123,530) have been returned to Italy 22 years after they were stolen.

Tribal art will be making a splash in Brussels around the city’s Sablon area, as it is does every summer, but this year it will be as part of a new cross-cultural promotion.

The Musée du Quai Branly, the dedicated museum for tribal art which opened in Paris in 2006, has been a key factor in boosting the French capital as a world centre for ethnography in both scholarly and commercial terms.

French art market associations have protested at environment minister Ségolène Royal’s plan to push for “a ban on any kind of ivory trade in France”.

A watch by Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) became the second most expensive piece by the Swiss maker when it sold to a private Swiss museum for triple-estimate SFr3.25m (£2.35m) including premium at Christie’s Geneva.

The Oppenheimer Blue diamond set the world record for any jewel sold at auction at Christie’s Geneva yesterday.

Eric Bijzet has become the latest expert to leave Sotheby’s as he plans to set up on his own as a dealer back home in Amsterdam.

A portrait by Eugène Delacroix redolent with associations to Nineteenth century French Romanticism has been secured by the Paris museum dedicated to his work.

Russian allegations that ISIS is netting $150-$200m annually from the sale of looted Syrian and Iraqi antiquities have been dismissed by the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA).

Christie’s Paris are to sell two figures of mourners as part of their European Sculpture and Works of Art sale on June 15.

Sotheby’s has announced the appointment of two new co-European chairmen as well as the establishment of a new strategy board which is set to drive growth.

The prosecution in the trial of the Cols Rouges – the erstwhile portering staff at Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers – have called for prison sentences of up to five years and fines of €250,000 for those found guilty of theft and criminal conspiracy.

The 29th staging of TEFAF Maastricht will go down as a good edition of the fair with dealers reporting decent sales overall and the changes made for this year’s event meeting general approval among the standholders.

ATG reporter Frances Allitt took her first trip to TEFAF Maastricht and, as well as witnessing the colour, excitement and love for art and objects that pervade the fair, she also learned some valuable lessons from dealers and visitors.

An original example of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic sold for €185,000 at Whyte’s of Dublin yesterday. Estimated at €150,000-250,000, the document published by the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army was one of only 40-50 known copies left in existence and it drew competition from two phone bidders, one from Ireland and the other from the US who ended up as the successful buyer.

With the preview of TEFAF 2016 now underway, ATG gives you a snapshot around the stands of the fair.

Tighter regulations surrounding fraud and money laundering are prompting French banks to close the euro accounts of some UK dealers and shippers.

A medieval ring long associated with Joan of Arc sold for £240,000 – almost 30 times its estimate – at Timeline Auctions in Bloomsbury on February 25.

Paul Iribe’s ‘Nautile’ armchair is one of the most striking proto-Art Deco designs, with its sleek swept-back lines and low armrests formed as a tight nautilus shell spiral.

The countryside of southern Burgundy, with its vineyards and Romanesque churches, might not be the first location that comes to mind for a tribal art fair.