Europe

ALL 49 lots from the Murray Frum collection of Oceanic art found a buyer on September 16 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Paris. The hammer total was €6.24m (£5.2m).

Lyon & Turnbull have been forced to postpone the sale of the contents of Bantry House, County Cork because of delays in obtaining a licence from the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) to hold the sale on the premises. The sale was scheduled to take place on October 21.

As Paris moved into top gear last week with the opening of the ‘Biennale des Antiquaires’ fair at the Grand Palais and the ‘Parcours des Mondes’ tribal art trail, the auction firm Piasa chose this as the moment to unveil their new headquarters at number 118 on the fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, set midway between Sotheby’s and Christie’s Paris rooms.

As the summer break ends, next month sees a rush of activity in the art world with a flurry of events not least in the Tribal Art category.

Gibraltar expects to become a new European Union tax haven for the trade in art by scrapping import and export duties on works from July 1.

Lyon & Turnbull are to sell the contents of Bantry House, County Cork, one of the best-known historic houses in the Republic of Ireland.

Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.

French auctioneers Artcurial are expanding their reach by opening an office in Austria, following on from the Milan and Brussels branches established in 2012.

The Kunstmuseum Bern has called the huge art bequest by Cornelius Gurlitt a “bolt from the blue, since at no time has Mr Gurlitt had any connection with” the museum.

An ancient Roman marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian that had been in the same private collection for over half a century was the runaway highlight in a recent sale held by Tessier Sarrou & Associés at Drouot in Paris.

The new owner of the biggest antique markets in Paris has pledged to vet them for authenticity and quality.

In a series of sales to be spread over the coming years, Cologne auctioneers Lempertz are selling netsuke from the Kolodotschko collection.

A very hefty price for a Baroque work of art emerged recently at the Drouot auction centre.

The Berlin-based online art and auction house Auctionata has secured €21.5 million in new equity capital and funding following a second funding round from the existing investors.

Christie’s are hoping to tap the international movie star market by putting on a preview for a new annual summer sale at the Cannes Film Festival.

The uncompromising Danish furniture designer/carpenter Peder Moos (1906-91) carefully hand-crafted virtually all his distinctive furniture.

The medieval town of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, near Avignon, is one of the most visited places in Provence.

€15m deal sets seal on more than three decades of dispute

Sotheby’s have had to buy back the 59.60 carat flawless fancy vivid pink diamond they sold in Geneva last November for a world record $83m.

A packed saleroom and a continuous barrage of phone bids combined to ensure a near sell-out, multi-estimate result at Sotheby’s in Paris for their three-session auction (in association with Artcurial) of the collection of Félix Marcilhac.