Europe

Bright spring sunshine greeted the opening of this year’s TEFAF Maastricht in sharp contrast to last year when freak snowfall disrupted many visitors’ travel plans to the southern Netherlands.

A small contingent of dealers from the UK are currently travelling to Paris for the launch of Cipolat SA’s new biannual antiques fair.

Christie’s has announced a major consignment of Old Master drawings which will be offered over the next two years in a series of sales in London, Amsterdam and Paris.

Like those London buses where you wait forever then two come along at once, two versions of a rare Olympic torch limited to just 33 examples turned up in separate Drouot auctions in Paris within the space of just ten days.

Paris auction house Piasa will move this spring to a new location at 118 rue du Faubourg St-Honoré, the prestigious Right Bank shopping street, home to art and antiques galleries and to Sotheby’s Paris.

This 19th century French ormolu-mounted boulle side cabinet is attributed to the Paris-based ébéniste-marqueteur Mathieu Befort (1813-80).

A Paris auction firm has been banned from holding sales for nine months and two of its auctioneers suspended for three months following a disciplinary hearing by the government body appointed to oversee auction practice in France.

The Spanish government have cut the tax on sales of works of art by more than half from 21% to 10% as a means of boosting trade.

The annual sales figures issued for several of the major French auction houses (or French branches of international auction houses) showed that for many, though not all, they saw an increase over the previous year despite what has been a difficult economic climate.

Statute of limitations laws may prevent previous owners successfully reclaiming art acquired during the Nazi purge of the late 1930s that was hoarded in a Munich flat.

Details are slowly emerging regarding the discovery in Munich some two years ago of an extraordinary cache of art with a Nazi era provenance.

The French art world has welcomed their government’s decision to cut, rather than increase, the rate on tax for works imported in to France from outside the EU.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury auctions have joined forces with Philobiblon, a leading Italian antiquarian books and manuscripts specialist, to offer monthly valuation events, auctions and fine art exhibitions in Rome.

Sotheby’s have announced that they are to offer a flawless 59.6-carat pink diamond for sale in Geneva on November 13 with a record asking price of $60m.

Demonstrating the benefits that provincial auctioneers continue to derive from the growth in demand for Modern British art, a number of this summer’s sale highlights in the regions were supplied by 20th century pictures.

Several of the main French auction firms and French branches of international houses have produced their half-year sales figures.

An exceptional piece of 17th century Japanese export lacquer with a provenance to match has produced the highest auction price in France this year when it was sold to the Rijksmuseum for a hammer price of €5.9m (£5.26m).

UK dealers and auction houses have been alerted to the theft of six oil paintings by Evie Hone from a church in Ireland.

A new decree under French law has banned the mailing of banknotes, coins, jewellery and precious metals using the standard French postal system.

Stuttgart auctioneers Nagel achieved a new German auction record for Oriental art when they sold a Yongzheng mark and period wine pot and cover for €2.8m (£2.37m).