France

Following the publication in 1632 of his Dialogo…, Galileo found himself hauled before the Inquisition and tried for his heretical views.

Classic antiques from furniture and works of art to scientific instruments and a Roman marble torso all feature in Artcurial’s evening sale in its Paris rooms on May 16.

Among a handful of pieces of Gallé French art glass in a sale of decorative arts and design to be held by Tessier Sarrou & Associés at Drouot on May 4 is this example of the designer’s skills in the medium.

Described as one of the quiet glories of southern France, the ancient town of Pézenas is set in the Languedoc Roussillon region, all rocky outcrops, pines and vines.

Tintin has had another good day out in Paris. In an Artcurial sale on April 8 a European collector paid €753,000 (£643,815), including premiums and taxes, to buy an ink drawing done by Hergé for the 1937 comic book Tintin in America.

Marielle Barde, Edgar Degas’ great-niece, was one of the heirs and vendors of the Degas studio drawings and attended Christie’s Paris sale. This was the second such dispersal the family had held in these rooms of artworks from her famous great-uncle following a house move some decades ago.

This pastel portrait by Maurice Quentin de la Tour is the potential star of the auction taking place at Drouot held by Kalck & Associés.

While Degas’ youthful drawings produced some notable individual prices in Drawings Week, it is the classic charcoal and pastel drawings of Parisian dancers and workers from his mature years that are the most commercially popular (the current work on paper record is the premium-inclusive $37m/ £23.35m/€29m paid for Danseuse au repos of 1879 at Sotheby’s New York in 2008).

Among the raft of dedicated works on paper auctions staged for the recent Drawings Week in Paris were two market-fresh sales devoted to family collections of works by a single French artist.

Christie’s is to appeal last month’s French court ruling that declared Droit de Suite is a charge on the vendor rather than the buyer.

Published in New York in 1977, The Vanished World Portfolio is a selection of a dozen photographs from the very many that were taken in the late 1930s in Cracow, Warsaw, the Carpathian regions and elsewhere in eastern Europe by Roman Vishniac (1897-1990).

With this year marking the centenary of the sculptor’s death, Auguste Rodin is much in the news. While the Grand Palais in Paris is marking the event with a major exhibition, Fraysse et Associés sold a 2ft 1in (64cm) high lifetime cast bronze figural group for €1.55m (£1.35m) at Drouot on March 22.

Technology has replicated the Dutch master’s work in a move the artist might have welcomed.

The way Droit de Suite is applied in France was affirmed by a French court ruling last month.

Filling much of a full-page advertisement in ATG No 2284 for the Pierre Bergé/Sotheby’s (24/20.5/17% buyer’s premium) sale in Paris on April 26 of books and manuscripts from the library of Jean A Bonna was the star turn – a stunning copy of Galileo’s Discorsi et Dimostrazioni matematiche of 1638.

Paris art and design fair PAD has lost its vetting committee following concerns about the brief time allowed to view stands.

Contemporary African art is currently much in vogue in the French capital.