International

A pair of royal portraits by the Spanish artist Miguel Jacinto Meléndez (1679-1734) go on sale at auction in Madrid this month.

The German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law (Kulturschutzgesetz) is due to be debated in the German Bundestag next spring after a “defused” draft of the law received cabinet approval on November 4.

Paris Tableau, the specialist Old Masters fair, announced midway through its run this month that from next year it would become part of the new annual Biennale des Antiquaires.

A late 18th century bust of the Goddess Diana which was looted from the Royal Lazienki Palace in Warsaw by the Nazis has been returned to Poland after emerging at auction in Vienna.

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

When two academics spotted a work on the stand of the Lyons dealer Galerie Michel Descours on the opening night of the dedicated Old Masters fair Paris Tableau last week, they immediately felt it was a work that should be in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon.

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.

Stakeholders in the Italian art market will meet lawmakers this week in the hope of overturning legislation they say has hampered the country’s art market for a century.

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.

Florence’s longstanding Antiques Fair, the ‘Biennale Internationale dell’ Antiquariato di Firenze’, opens next week in the city’s 17th century Palazzo Corsini, running from September 26 to October 4.

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

Sotheby’s will open an office in Mumbai, as they bid to expand their Indian businesses with two ‘strategic’ appointments in the region.

The ‘Parcours des Mondes’, Paris’ annual tribal art trail, began last week in the Saint Germain quarter of the city.

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.