International

A COURT ruling means new Venice auction house San Marco can proceed with their July 8-9 sale - but only under strict conditions.

Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton was one of the most notorious British commanders of the American Revolution. After leading a series of successful operations in both the north and south, he returned home after the war as one of the most famous men in England, sat for a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and began a long-term affair with actress and royal consort Mary Robinson.

SEAFAIR, the ambitious project of a floating antiques selling exhibition along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, has delayed its launch from late this year to next June.

Italy has witnessed a sudden, perhaps unexpected, surge in its auction scene with a series of record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s, the most remarkable of which has been the Milan sale of a cycle of Tiepolo canvases on May 30.

THE British Antique Dealers’ Association have called off plans for their much-debated January fair in New York.

Auction house acquire leading Old Master dealer with debts of $26m

Cadogan Tate Fine Art have launched a new weekly transport service from London and Paris to Switzerland to meet the growing demand for discreet fine art transport.

Rare and significant works of art from the Old World will just occasionally surface, unrecorded, in the New.

A NEW record for Ming porcelain set by a king of Las Vegas provided the headline, but the real story of Christie’s anniversary series in Hong Kong was the rise and rise of Modern and Contemporary Asian art. This relatively new visitor to the global auction market has now eclipsed more traditional collecting disciplines as Christie’s biggest earner in Hong Kong.

Over 500 clients participated in Christie’s inaugural sale in Dubai last month at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel.

“It is indeed a lovely spot of earth, lonely and secluded; the wood full of game, the lake full of fish, and nature full of poetry.” Luggala, as so eloquently observed by Hermann, Prince von Pückler-Muskau after a visit in 1828, is one of the most beautiful private estates in Ireland.

CHRISTIE’S May 17 sale of Partridge stock in New York went according to plan, with a hammer total of $12.5m (£6.65m).

The ownership of this c.1760 Irish mahogany side table was traced by the late Sir Charles Brett, a prominent Ulster attorney and leading Irish historian, to his descendent Charles Brett of Belfast (1752-1829). He was a wine merchant in Belfast and Bordeaux in the 1780s and his many business concerns included interests in the Belfast Glass Works, Distillery, Chamber of Commerce and Shipping.

AUSTRALIA have rejected Droit de Suite.

THE world stamp market is reeling this week after what could prove to be a €5bn pyramid selling scheme was unmasked in Spain.

Hedge funds continue to stake a claim on big-ticket names

Pablo Picasso has become the ultimate luxury brand. On May 3 at Sotheby’s New York Picasso’s rare and iconic 1941 portrait, Dora Maar au chat, became the world’s second most expensive painting when it sold for $85m (£48.3m) to a mystery buyer in the room, widely presumed to be representing a Russian oligarch.

THE value of UK exports of antiques to Hong Kong almost trebled in 2005 according to the latest Customs figures.

THE Australian government has acted to protect indigenous artists following media reports that exposed exploitation and corruption in the Aboriginal art world.

The current boom in the market for Chinese Contemporary paintings could hardly be better illustrated than by the way sale statistics have been leapfrogging around the globe in the last couple of weeks.