Europe

The Spanish government have cut the tax on sales of works of art by more than half from 21% to 10% as a means of boosting trade.

The annual sales figures issued for several of the major French auction houses (or French branches of international auction houses) showed that for many, though not all, they saw an increase over the previous year despite what has been a difficult economic climate.

Statute of limitations laws may prevent previous owners successfully reclaiming art acquired during the Nazi purge of the late 1930s that was hoarded in a Munich flat.

Details are slowly emerging regarding the discovery in Munich some two years ago of an extraordinary cache of art with a Nazi era provenance.

The French art world has welcomed their government’s decision to cut, rather than increase, the rate on tax for works imported in to France from outside the EU.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury auctions have joined forces with Philobiblon, a leading Italian antiquarian books and manuscripts specialist, to offer monthly valuation events, auctions and fine art exhibitions in Rome.

Sotheby’s have announced that they are to offer a flawless 59.6-carat pink diamond for sale in Geneva on November 13 with a record asking price of $60m.

Demonstrating the benefits that provincial auctioneers continue to derive from the growth in demand for Modern British art, a number of this summer’s sale highlights in the regions were supplied by 20th century pictures.

Several of the main French auction firms and French branches of international houses have produced their half-year sales figures.

An exceptional piece of 17th century Japanese export lacquer with a provenance to match has produced the highest auction price in France this year when it was sold to the Rijksmuseum for a hammer price of €5.9m (£5.26m).

UK dealers and auction houses have been alerted to the theft of six oil paintings by Evie Hone from a church in Ireland.

A new decree under French law has banned the mailing of banknotes, coins, jewellery and precious metals using the standard French postal system.

Stuttgart auctioneers Nagel achieved a new German auction record for Oriental art when they sold a Yongzheng mark and period wine pot and cover for €2.8m (£2.37m).

Paris auctioneers Gros & Delettrez have announced the sale of 350 lots of haute couture from Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain, muse to the late Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s, and later an artistic advisor at Dior.

The Charles Le Brun oil on canvas discovered hanging in the Paris Hôtel Ritz proved to be the high point of Christie’s latest sale of Old Master and 19th century paintings in Paris.

Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers are selling hundreds of items from Fort William, a quirky Tudor Revival-style mansion in Lismore, Co Waterford, Ireland.

The latest mixed-owner sale of Old Masters, furniture and objets d’art in Paris held at Drouot by Beaussant Lefèvre saw some estimate-crushing prices and two pre-emptions by the Louvre.

Christie’s are scaling down their Dutch operation with substantially fewer staff and a pared-down sales schedule designed to reflect the international auction calendar.

If ever there was a single record that could lay claim to truly starting the Rock and Roll era, it must be Elvis Presley’s first single ‘That’s all right (Mama)’, recorded in Memphis in July 5, 1954.

Showing up at TEFAF Maastricht in the southern Netherlands with a stand cobbled together from stale, lacklustre stock is tantamount to professional suicide, the sort of nightmare that has dealers waking up in a cold sweat.