Europe

Paris Tableau, the specialist Old Masters fair, announced midway through its run this month that from next year it would become part of the new annual Biennale des Antiquaires.

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.

When two academics spotted a work on the stand of the Lyons dealer Galerie Michel Descours on the opening night of the dedicated Old Masters fair Paris Tableau last week, they immediately felt it was a work that should be in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon.

Stakeholders in the Italian art market will meet lawmakers this week in the hope of overturning legislation they say has hampered the country’s art market for a century.

Florence’s longstanding Antiques Fair, the ‘Biennale Internationale dell’ Antiquariato di Firenze’, opens next week in the city’s 17th century Palazzo Corsini, running from September 26 to October 4.

The ‘Parcours des Mondes’, Paris’ annual tribal art trail, began last week in the Saint Germain quarter of the city.

Guillaume Cerutti, chief executive of Sotheby’s France and European deputy chairman, is to leave and join Christie’s as president for London, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Russia and India.

A group of 32 ancient gold ornaments have been returned to China following claims they had been illegally removed.

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.

Dutch online auction business Catawiki has raised $82m to build its business.

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.

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

Paris auction house Artcurial have formed a new subsidiary to conduct regular sales in Monaco.

The Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, has welcomed the news that swathes of former staff members are to face charges relating to stolen property.

Two rare brooches by Wiener Werkstätte founder Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) caused a sensation when they appeared in the recent Jugendstil and Design auction held at Kinsky in Vienna.

Six paintings consigned to Gorringes of Lewes, East Sussex, have been returned to the Amsterdam Museum after being identified as those stolen from the Dutch institution over 40 years ago.

Reaction to the news that the Paris ‘Biennale’ will become an annual event has been largely positive.

Members of French dealers’ association the Syndicat National des Antiquaires have voted to make the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris an annual event.

Christie’s has agreed to withdraw seven pictures, including two by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, from its July 9 and 10 sales after owners the Alfred Beit Foundation asked to postpone their sale.