International

Christie’s are to hold auctions in Shanghai from this autumn, making them the first international fine art auction company to win a licence to operate independently in mainland China.

The latest mixed-owner sale of Old Masters, furniture and objets d’art in Paris held at Drouot by Beaussant Lefèvre saw some estimate-crushing prices and two pre-emptions by the Louvre.

Christie’s are scaling down their Dutch operation with substantially fewer staff and a pared-down sales schedule designed to reflect the international auction calendar.

If ever there was a single record that could lay claim to truly starting the Rock and Roll era, it must be Elvis Presley’s first single ‘That’s all right (Mama)’, recorded in Memphis in July 5, 1954.

TEFAF have announced that they are in discussions with Sotheby’s about the possibility of launching a high-end art fair in mainland China next year.

This pair of heavily carved Ibeji figures are one of the highlights at Webb’s Oceanic & African Arts sale on March 26 in Auckland, New Zealand.

A private collector has paid a record Aus$495,000 for one of Australia’s first coins, the so-called Holey Dollar.

The latest TEFAF market report values the global art market at €43 billion for the last year. The figure was 7% down the previous year, but the fall is wholly explained by a €3.5bn decline in sales in China.

Fine art, antiques and collectables worth £8m, consigned from the UK by a consortium of regional auctioneers, are currently on a container ship heading to China.

Showing up at TEFAF Maastricht in the southern Netherlands with a stand cobbled together from stale, lacklustre stock is tantamount to professional suicide, the sort of nightmare that has dealers waking up in a cold sweat.

At the end of the Second World War, this 18th century flintlock repeating carbine was thrown onto a huge heap of weapons confiscated from German citizens.

Scam guides have reared their head again, targeting dealers in a bid to extort large sums of money for useless advertising.

New York’s highest court has decided to review a recent ruling that says salerooms in the state must reveal consignors’ names to buyers.

It’s usually the stuff of fairy tales, but a collection of $20 gold coins and medals valued at around $1m for sale at Bonhams in Los Angeles in June is real enough.

After 45 years, Sotheby’s are to cease holding auctions in Canada to focus instead on private sales and sourcing material for the international market.

Paris auction house Piasa are making a bold leap across the Seine and opening a new saleroom on the rue du Bac, thereby becoming the first Parisian auctioneers to hold sales on the Left Bank.

The Modern and Contemporary art collection accumulated over a 60-year period by singer Andy Williams will be sold at auction later this year.

Students of American ceramic history have long been taught that the first successful producers of porcelain in North America were Gousse Bonnin (1741-c.1780) and George Anthony Morris (1741/5-73), who ran the short-lived American China Manufactory in Philadelphia between 1769 and 1772.

Stack’s Bowers Galleries of Irvine, California, have set a new global auction record for a coin at a hammer price of $8.525m (£5.61m).

Dolphin Promotions have sold the long-running ‘Miami National Antiques Show & Sale’ to US Antique Shows, a division of consumer and tradeshow producers GLM.