Europe

French auctioneers Artcurial are expanding their reach by opening an office in Austria, following on from the Milan and Brussels branches established in 2012.

The Kunstmuseum Bern has called the huge art bequest by Cornelius Gurlitt a “bolt from the blue, since at no time has Mr Gurlitt had any connection with” the museum.

An ancient Roman marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian that had been in the same private collection for over half a century was the runaway highlight in a recent sale held by Tessier Sarrou & Associés at Drouot in Paris.

The new owner of the biggest antique markets in Paris has pledged to vet them for authenticity and quality.

In a series of sales to be spread over the coming years, Cologne auctioneers Lempertz are selling netsuke from the Kolodotschko collection.

A very hefty price for a Baroque work of art emerged recently at the Drouot auction centre.

The Berlin-based online art and auction house Auctionata has secured €21.5 million in new equity capital and funding following a second funding round from the existing investors.

Christie’s are hoping to tap the international movie star market by putting on a preview for a new annual summer sale at the Cannes Film Festival.

The uncompromising Danish furniture designer/carpenter Peder Moos (1906-91) carefully hand-crafted virtually all his distinctive furniture.

The medieval town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, near Avignon, is one of the most visited places in Provence.

€15m deal sets seal on more than three decades of dispute

Sotheby’s have had to buy back the 59.60 carat flawless fancy vivid pink diamond they sold in Geneva last November for a world record $83m.

A packed saleroom and a continuous barrage of phone bids combined to ensure a near sell-out, multi-estimate result at Sotheby’s in Paris for their three-session auction (in association with Artcurial) of the collection of Félix Marcilhac.

Bright spring sunshine greeted the opening of this year’s TEFAF Maastricht in sharp contrast to last year when freak snowfall disrupted many visitors’ travel plans to the southern Netherlands.

A small contingent of dealers from the UK are currently travelling to Paris for the launch of Cipolat SA’s new biannual antiques fair.

Christie’s has announced a major consignment of Old Master drawings which will be offered over the next two years in a series of sales in London, Amsterdam and Paris.

Like those London buses where you wait forever then two come along at once, two versions of a rare Olympic torch limited to just 33 examples turned up in separate Drouot auctions in Paris within the space of just ten days.

Paris auction house Piasa will move this spring to a new location at 118 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, the prestigious Right Bank shopping street, home to art and antiques galleries and to Sotheby’s Paris.

This 19th century French ormolu-mounted boulle side cabinet is attributed to the Paris-based ébéniste-marqueteur Mathieu Befort (1813-80).

A Paris auction firm has been banned from holding sales for nine months and two of its auctioneers suspended for three months following a disciplinary hearing by the government body appointed to oversee auction practice in France.