US

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.

Christie’s latest cross-category sale entitled The Artist’s Muse set the second highest ever auction price for a work of art when Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (Reclining nude) sold at $152m (£104.8m).

The hefty guarantee paid out by Sotheby’s to secure the Alfred Taubman collection meant the stakes were running high for the first and most financially crucial tranche of the four-part auction staged at Sotheby’s New York.

Two single-owner collections of Martinware – each exceptional in their own way – will appear for sale on either side of the Atlantic this autumn.

Christie’s have announced a new themed week of sales in New York next April.

“Button who?” When Shropshire documents consultant Ben Jones was told that an American client was considering selling the clipped signature of Button Gwinnett he reached for the search engine.

This painting, found by John Nye of Bloomfield, New Jersey saleroom Nye & Company Auctions leaning up against a cellar wall, became one of the sleepers of the year on September 22.

Online dealer marketplace 1stdibs has raised between $50m and $60m from venture capitalists Insight Venture Partners, Fortune magazine reports.

An American businessman has been charged in a New York court accused of applying improper valuations to items sold from his art and antiques collection.

Phillips are to begin-streaming their sales live on eBay’s platform for upmarket auctions of fine art and antiques.

Christie’s have announced a major highlight for the upcoming New York auction series. They are offering Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (Reclining Nude) which they have estimated at in excess of $100m.

The collection of the late A Alfred Taubman is to be offered in a series of sales in New York, starting this autumn.

A London dealer has welcomed a new wide-ranging bill aimed at amending the law passed in the US last year banning the commercial trade in elephant ivory.

A study for one of Frederic, Lord Leighton’s (1830-1896) greatest paintings sold to an American private collector for £135,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art.

A stolen Auguste Rodin sculpture, recovered after it was consigned to Christie’s in 2011, will go to auction later this year.

The US Court of Appeals has ruled that the California Resale Royalty Act (CRRA) can stand but apply only to sales made within the state and not to those made out-of-state by California residents.