Europe

As the pandemic continues to upend the art market calendar, two heavyweights of the Contemporary art and design fair scene are going digital.

A painting by Pierre Soulages (b.1919) sold at Caen Enchères (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Normandy featured a particularly notable provenance.

The American artist Donald Judd (1928-94) abandoned painting in the 1960s and devoted himself to producing three-dimensional objects.

It is well known that the death of an artist often leads to an upsurge of market interest and that has certainly happened with the Bulgarian Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, who died last year.

Among the surprises at a Contemporary art sale at Ketterer (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich was the result for a work by the painter-poet Henri Michaux.

New proposals by the European Commission to prevent the commercial export and import of most antiques containing ivory have been described by The British Antique Dealers Association (BADA) as “hugely damaging and disproportionate”.

This canine portrait 'Minnay' by Edouard Manet (1832-83) will be offered for sale by Drouot Estimations on February 26.

A sale to be held by Jack-Philippe Ruellan in Vannes in Brittany will feature this Olympic torch from the 10th Winter Olympics held in Grenoble in 1968.

Sold for a record €260,000 (£234,235) in Hamburg was a copy of Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer’s Speculum nauticum super navigatione maris occidentalis…

On March 23 Christie’s France, in association with booksellers Jacques Quentin (Geneva) and Benoît Forgeot (Paris), will offer the first part of the poetic library of Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

January proves to be a busy month in France including 37 sales at the Drouot in a fortnight

The Cluny Museum in Paris, dedicated to works of art from the Middle Ages, pre-empted two items in a Pierre Bergé & Associes sale of Haute Epoque in Paris.

The Gros & Delettrez (30% buyer’s premium) auction of Art Deco held in Paris on January 22 offered works from the collection of a gallery owner.

The auction firm Peschetau-Badin (22.5% buyer’s premium) is known for holding dedicated ceramics sales and offered a two-day auction of European ceramics.

Two paintings by the French artist Albert Marquet (1875-1947) performed successfully at auctions in two different French cities in the space of 24 hours.

France has changed its export licensing system for cultural goods, increasing the value thresholds and removing some red tape.

Sold for €160,000 (£144,145) was a letter sent by Félix Régamy to his brother Frédéric including a drawing of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in England.

Such was the demand for suits of armour from late 19th and early 20th century collectors that European master armourers were kept hard at work long after the practical need for such protective wear had passed.