Europe

Christie's Paris and Pierre Bergé & Associés have teamed up for their first joint sale since the record-breaking Collection Yves Saint Laurent – Pierre Bergé sale in 2009.

Crowning the white-glove success of Japanese works from the Portier collection in Paris was the sale of this signature portrait print by Kitagawa Utamaro for €600,000 (£500,000).

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.

Three Irish paintings that were previously stolen from their former owner's home are on the market this September.

Art and antiques industry figures are urging “cool heads and steady hands” in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, while stressing the UK’s continued prominence in the global art market.

Two finely carved marble figures of mourners from the tomb of Jean de France, the duc de Berry (1340-1416) brother of King Charles V of France were secured by the Louvre for €4.4m (£3.67m) at Christie’s Paris last week.

Kraemer Gallery and Didier Aaron & Cie, the two leading members of the Paris trade embroiled in a faking scandal, are expected to be excluded from the forthcoming Biennale des Antiquaires, a source close to the French trade has told ATG.

Leaders of art and antiques trade bodies from key markets are due to discuss the rising tide of regulation against ivory, and the consequent threat to the trade of antique ivory, when they meet at the annual gathering international dealers in Paris later this week.

A painting catalogued as from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens soared past a cautious four-figure estimate to take €1.56m (£1.3m) at a recent Paris auction.

Two barons of the Paris antiques trade have been questioned in connection with the so-called Affaire Jean Lupu, a growing scandal surrounding fakes.

Economist and author of the annual TEFAF Art Market Report Clare McAndrew has left TEFAF to join with Art Basel, it has been announced.

The EU’s planned crackdown on terrorism funding and the way it is investigating possible legislation is a ‘big concern to the trade’.

A painting by Marcel Duchamp sold for €1.243m (£1.035m including premium) at Artcurial in Paris on June 6.

Two large Old Master paintings worth up to €180,000 (£123,530) have been returned to Italy 22 years after they were stolen.

Tribal art will be making a splash in Brussels around the city’s Sablon area, as it is does every summer, but this year it will be as part of a new cross-cultural promotion.

The Musée du Quai Branly, the dedicated museum for tribal art which opened in Paris in 2006, has been a key factor in boosting the French capital as a world centre for ethnography in both scholarly and commercial terms.

French art market associations have protested at environment minister Ségolène Royal’s plan to push for “a ban on any kind of ivory trade in France”.

A watch by Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) became the second most expensive piece by the Swiss maker when it sold to a private Swiss museum for triple-estimate SFr3.25m (£2.35m) including premium at Christie’s Geneva.

The Oppenheimer Blue diamond set the world record for any jewel sold at auction at Christie’s Geneva yesterday.

Eric Bijzet has become the latest expert to leave Sotheby’s as he plans to set up on his own as a dealer back home in Amsterdam.