North America

Just under $1.2bn changed hands at the top-end of the art market in New York this week as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips all held their Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions over seven days for the first time. Here is ATG’s pick of individual highlights sold across the week.

Joseph Chait, a 38-year-old senior auction administrator with IM Chait gallery and auction house in Beverly Hills, has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to smuggle items of rhino horn, ivory, coral and a hornbill casque.

The Palm Beach Show Group have announced the launch of a new fair in Miami Beach.

A rare American stamp stolen in 1955 in one of the most famous thefts in philatelic history has been recovered after turning up at Spink.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service have announced a new programme to “help reduce the overall ivory market”.

Four London dealers were made to deface valuable antiques after they imported objects into the US without declaring their ivory content.

Two of the best-known anthropomorphic creations of the celebrated Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter (1835-1918) resurfaced at Treadway Toomey in Oak Park, near Chicago, Illinois, on February 6.

A jury in New York lost their chance to rule on the first of several lawsuits against the Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman when the suits were settled out of court.

A previously unknown seventh edition of the Bay Psalm Book, published in Boston, 1693, with a provenance tied to Salem witch trial judge Jonathan Corwin and descendants of John Proctor, sold for $221,000 (£151,584) at a Swann sale in New York on February 4.

This 18½in (47cm) George II silver soup tureen by the goldsmith Paul de Lamerie featured in Doyle’s latest sale of furniture, works of art and Old Master paintings in New York.

Troubled dealership Mallett are to look for new galleries in London and New York after putting the blue-chip leases of both of their current premises up for sale.

The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), umbrella organiser of the world’s foremost art and antiques fair in Maastricht, are launching two boutique events in the Park Avenue Armory, New York.

Expert witnesses were called to give evidence during legal proceedings between Domenico De Sole, chairman of Sotheby’s, and Ann Freedman, the former president of Knoedler gallery, over the sale of a fake Rothko painting.

Michigan art dealer Eric Spoutz was arrested on February 3 on a federal charge of selling forged artworks.

US Antique Shows, organisers of the ‘Original Miami Beach Antique Show’, have announced that the event will relocate to a new venue and a mid-February slot in 2017.

Sotheby’s are following Christie’s by staging their flagship New York May auctions of Impressionist & Modern art and Contemporary art in a single week.

Ivory collectors in California are suing the state in the hope of overturning restrictive legislation that comes in to force on July 1 this year.

The New York branch of Mallett and the company’s former director in the Big Apple, Henry Neville, are embroiled in the case brought by US authorities against Robert A Olins, the disgraced former chief executive of a technology company.

Christie’s have announced major changes to their antiquities sales calendar in London and New York.

The large sums of money changing hands at the top end of the Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art market was underlined at the latest auctions in New York.