Germany

A bronze Etruscan statuette that was stolen from Berlin’s Antikensammlung during the Second World War has been returned after the intervention of London dealers Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch.

Online auction house Auctionata is closing down after an attempt to find new investment failed to materialise.

The company behind online art and antiques auctioneer Auctionata and Paddle8 has filed for preliminary insolvency to restructure its business.

A remarkable drawing by German artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872) that was recently restituted to the family of a Holocaust victim has sold for €1.7m (£1.44m) at an auction in Berlin.

As you peruse this story on your computer, smartphone or tablet, take a look at the keyboard on said devices and spare a thought for the Rev Rasmus Malling-Hansen (1835-90).

A much-exhibited early 19th century drawing, restituted in August to the heirs of a Holocaust victim, has immediately appeared for sale in Germany.

Martin Klosterfelde, a former Berlin-based contemporary art specialist and director at Phillips, has joined Sotheby’s.

An auction of a Thracian coin – minted in the city of Apollonia Pontica (in modern-day Bulgaria) in the 4th or 5th century BC – was halted by eBay on the grounds the listing was ‘hateful or discriminatory’.

The Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim has had to close a major exhibition after collectors withdrew their loans following the approval of Germany’s new Cultural Property Protection Act.

German auctioneers are preparing to move sales abroad following the passing of a controversial new cultural heritage law.

Calls for greater transparency in the way German institutions deal with Nazi-looted art should be extended to the country’s art and antiques trade, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe has said.

The German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law (Kulturschutzgesetz) is due to be debated in the German Bundestag next spring after a “defused” draft of the law received cabinet approval on November 4.

A late 18th century bust of the Goddess Diana which was looted from the Royal Lazienki Palace in Warsaw by the Nazis has been returned to Poland after emerging at auction in Vienna.

In Germany, software billionaire Hasso Plattner has become the latest collector to demonstrate opposition to the proposed cultural property law changes.

Coin specialists AH Baldwin & Sons are encouraging their customers to sign the petition opposing an amendment to the controversial German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law.

Opposition to controversial new laws governing cultural heritage in Germany is gathering pace. Auctioneers, dealers and collectors are backing a petition ‘preserving the right to privately collect’ and calling for German the government to rethink its proposals.

Sotheby’s will hold a sale of the Bernheimer family collection in November and Konrad Bernheimer has announced the family’s Munich art dealership will move from its traditional Old Master specialism to concentrate on Modern and Contemporary art under the direction of his daughters.

Only one other major George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) manuscript has come up for auction in the last 40 years, so Stargardt in Berlin can be assured of an international audience for the extensive autograph work they will offer on March 24-25.

The April edition of the ‘Kunst & Antiquitäten’ fair will not go ahead this year.