International

The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF), umbrella organiser of the world’s foremost art and antiques fair in Maastricht, are launching two boutique events in the Park Avenue Armory, New York.

Expert witnesses were called to give evidence during legal proceedings between Domenico De Sole, chairman of Sotheby’s, and Ann Freedman, the former president of Knoedler gallery, over the sale of a fake Rothko painting.

Michigan art dealer Eric Spoutz was arrested on February 3 on a federal charge of selling forged artworks.

BRAFA, the Brussels art fair, opened its doors last month for its 61st edition, boosted in space and exhibitors by a new extension.

US Antique Shows, organisers of the ‘Original Miami Beach Antique Show’, have announced that the event will relocate to a new venue and a mid-February slot in 2017.

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.

The centrepiece of Sotheby’s April auction series in Hong Kong will be the collection of around 100 lots of Chinese porcelain spanning the Tang to Qing dynasties that was formed by the British collector Roger Pilkington.

Hong Kong is to tighten its rules on ivory.

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.

This 11 x 7in (29 x 20cm) Tête de Femme by Alexej Von Jawlensky is one of over 170 works by a roster of some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art that will feature in a two-part single-owner sale to be held by Tajan in Paris next week.

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.