France

The Fine Arts Paris fair opened to the public this week at the Carrousel du Louvre with the announcement of major expansion plans for its 2020 edition.

A draft bill recommending further reform to the French auction system has passed through the Senate in Paris.

A panel ascribed to the Italian artist Cimabue (c.1240-1302) drew dramatic competition this weekend at French auction house Actéon, becoming the eighth most expensive Old Master ever sold.

Paris auction house Artcurial is opening an office in Morocco. Launching a permanent subsidiary in Marrakesh, the firm will now start holding regular sales at the famous La Mamounia hotel in the city from December this year.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth in West Yorkshire has begun a public campaign to raise the final funds needed to bid for a rare manuscript from the Brontës' childhood.

Paris auction house Artcurial is to offer a painting by Paul Gauguin from his Tahitian period. It will be offered at a sale in December estimated at €5m-7m.

A group of drawings and a sketchbook compiled by an artist assigned to Napoleon’s campaigns in Prussia and Poland in 1806-7 has been secured by the Louvre at a Toulouse auction.

A work spotted by a French auctioneer in a kitchen hanging above a hotplate has been ascribed to the Italian artist Cimabue (c.1240-1302). Valued at €4m-6m, it will be the first work attributed to the Florentine early Renaissance master to be offered at auction.

A collection of 64 vintage motorbikes and seven bicycles that a father and son have spent 50 years assembling and restoring is to be sold at auction in France.

A rare early 17th century bronze bust of a French statesman has been discovered in a French country house and will be offered for auction at Drouot in Paris in November with an estimate of €500,000-800,000.