Europe

A ROW has erupted after another attempt by South American interests to intervene in a tribal art sale in Paris.

A PIECE from a celebrated but elusive porcelain service that turned up at the latest sale at Aguttes in Paris understandably caused great excitement.

SOTHEBY'S have announced that they are to make Paris their European centre for sales of 20th century decorative art and design and photographs.

A SALE of Olympic memorabilia at Vassy-Jalenques SARL in Paris on February 3 includes this rare official Olympic torch from the 1952 Helsinki summer games.

AUCTION turnover figures for Paris in 2010 show the city’s three major firms – Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Artcurial – gaining market share at the expense of crisis-ridden Drouot.

THE ten Parisian dealers hoping to push Old Masters into the limelight in the French capital have confirmed their decision to hold a fair dedicated to the genre this autumn with dates and details.

MUNICH saleroom Ketterer Kunst enjoyed a record year in 2010, posting annual sales of €21.6m (€26m including premium).

A SALE at the Hotel Drouot in Paris devoted to minor works by Picasso was called off at the last minute because of controversy over provenance.

TEN leading Parisian Old Master galleries have announced plans to launch a select new fair in the French capital next year.

It could be less than a month until the date is named when antiquities dealer Malcolm Hay will be extradited to serve a four-year jail sentence in Greece – on the strength of no credible evidence.

SOTHEBY’S set a new auction record for a jewel in Geneva when a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond sold to London jeweller Laurence Graff at SFr40.5m (£25.6m) plus premium.

PARIS furniture dealer Hervé Aaron was removed as President of France’s Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA) at its AGM on October 25 – to be replaced by the man he ousted two years ago, Christian Deydier.

PICTURED here is one of more than 100 polychrome Delft tiles, valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds, stolen from a leading collector in the Netherlands.

THREE people have been arrested in Germany in connection with a multi-million pound art fraud involving a number of apparently major 20th century oils sold on the international market in recent years.

THE spectre of a nationalised Drouot haunted delegates at the Annual Congress of French auctioneers’ union SYMEV, held at Artcurial’s Champs-Elysées premises earlier this month.

THE Hotel Drouot, the communal auction facility used by most Paris auctioneers, faces an even bigger overhaul than expected after the French Justice Minister’s scathing report about its culture and working practices.

A COLLECTION of 85 bosuns’ calls was among items stolen from a home in Milan in early August. Most of the calls were British, but there were also examples from the USA, Italy, China and India.

THE October 8 toy sale at Nagel in Stuttgart will include this Märklin gauge-1 model of the Stuttgart train station.

IT may have been an exceptional piece that generated an equally exceptional level of presale interest but, even still, few people present at Christie's Paris for the sale of Amedeo Modigliai's (1884-1920) Tête were expecting it to become the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in France.

WITH the retreat from Dunkirk so much in the news at the moment, Aguttes have a particularly topical offering in their June 18 sale of manuscripts, postcards and historical documents.