International

THE Swiss authorities have launched a criminal investigation into scam guide firms and their associated debt recovery agencies.

Dreweatt Neate Fine Art have arranged a major private treaty sale to the National Library of Australia, on behalf of a prominent UK family, of a historically important folio of watercolours.

The emerging class of wealthy Chinese buyers continues to boost the top-end of the art and antiques market in the Far East. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that Sotheby’s set a house record in this autumn’s Hong Kong series, taking HK$850.9m (£61.7m) from seven sales.

Less than a month after celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show has been acquired by the managing partners of the Palm Beach Jewelry & Antique Show from Frank Farbenbloom.

BY IVAN MACQUISTEN Droit de Suite, the much-feared extra levy on art sales, cannot now be introduced in the UK on January 1 next year.

BY IVAN MACQUISTENROBERT Brooks has been nailing his colours to the mast in more ways than one in the past week.

Christie’s, the first Western auction house to establish a representative office in China in 1994, have joined forces with Forever, a newly-established Beijing-based auction house, to hold their first sale in mainland China next month.

Neal Auction Co., temporarily displaced from their New Orleans headquarters, will hold their annual Louisiana Purchase sale on December 3-4 in Jackson, Mississippi.

A French court has upheld the right of Paris auction firm Artcurial to use the name F. Tajan in their full title Artcurial Briest-Le Fur-Poulain-F. Tajan.

SCIENTISTS in Australia have developed a new method of identifying of ancient Chinese ceramics which could play a major role in the battle against fakes.

France’s Auctioneers’ Association SYMEV is to stage the first-ever Journées Nationales des Ventes aux Enchères (National Auction Weekend) on November 19-20.

MALLETT, one of Bond Street’s most famous names, are to expand their New York branch, with work hopefully starting in November.

A DECADE after the Thurn und Taxis and Baden Baden sales in the 1990s, Sotheby’s are once again decamping to a German castle to stage another mammoth aristocratic auction.

INITIAL Government responses to recommendations made during the consultation on droit de suite are encouraging for the art market.

One of Manhattan’s best-known antique centres, The Showplace, is expanding its 30,000 square ft premises with the addition of a new floor that will open in early October.

Strengthening their position as Ireland’s largest auction house, James Adam & Sons have been assigned the fine art business of major Dublin rival and property giant Hamilton Osborne King.

SOTHEBY’s are to launch a sale in January that will openly rely entirely upon dealers’ stock for its content.

NO issue has caused more reader complaints to ATG in the past decade than scam guides targeting the trade. Now there is a chance to put a stop to them by signing up to a Europe-wide campaign.

Stair Galleries and Restoration will move into new headquarters in Hudson New York in August.

by Ian McKayUNDOUBTEDLY one of the more famous of cartographic curiosities, the ‘Leo Belgicus’ map, in which the 17 provinces of the Low Countries are depicted in the form of a lion, was first introduced by Michael Eitzinger as part of a topographical and historical account of the Netherlands, published in Cologne in 1583.