International

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

Paris auction house Artcurial have formed a new subsidiary to conduct regular sales in Monaco.

A study for one of Frederic, Lord Leighton’s (1830-1896) greatest paintings sold to an American private collector for £135,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist Art.

The Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, has welcomed the news that swathes of former staff members are to face charges relating to stolen property.

Two rare brooches by Wiener Werkstätte founder Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) caused a sensation when they appeared in the recent Jugendstil and Design auction held at Kinsky in Vienna.

A stolen Auguste Rodin sculpture, recovered after it was consigned to Christie’s in 2011, will go to auction later this year.

Berlin online auction house Auctionata set a house record when this Chinese enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock was sold for €2.8m (£2.15m), or €3.37m including premium.

Six paintings consigned to Gorringes of Lewes, East Sussex, have been returned to the Amsterdam Museum after being identified as those stolen from the Dutch institution over 40 years ago.

Reaction to the news that the Paris ‘Biennale’ will become an annual event has been largely positive.

Members of French dealers’ association the Syndicat National des Antiquaires have voted to make the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris an annual event.

Christie’s has agreed to withdraw seven pictures, including two by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, from its July 9 and 10 sales after owners the Alfred Beit Foundation asked to postpone their sale.

The US Court of Appeals has ruled that the California Resale Royalty Act (CRRA) can stand but apply only to sales made within the state and not to those made out-of-state by California residents.

Asian Art has blossomed in Paris this month. Items that combined quality, rarity and provenance generated fierce bidding at sales at Drouot and the various salerooms around the French capital.

The slump in the Russian art market was laid bare last week. The total for the latest auction series in London was a third of the equivalent sales in 2014.

The tribal art dealer Anthony JP Meyer, who specialises in Oceanic art, has a gallery on the rue des Beaux Arts in the heart of Paris’ Left Bank dealer district. He is a regular at ‘TEFAF Maastricht’ and at the Paris tribal trail known as the ‘Parcours des Mondes’, which takes place in September. Here he discusses with Anne Crane of Antiques Trade Gazette how his interest in the field started, his views on collecting and the tribal market.

The third annual ‘Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Symposium’ will be held in New York on June 4-6.

Sotheby’s will hold a sale of the Bernheimer family collection in November and Konrad Bernheimer has announced the family’s Munich art dealership will move from its traditional Old Master specialism to concentrate on Modern and Contemporary art under the direction of his daughters.

Attracting collectors and experts from around the world, the third edition of ‘Asia Week Hong Kong’ will take place from May 27 to June 11.

The latest Modern and Contemporary art auctions in New York took the market to new heights with $2.73bn (£1.84bn) changing hands over two weeks of flagship sales.

Christie’s evening sale of post-war and Contemporary art last night posted a premium-inclusive total of $658.5m (£445m) as the bumper fortnight of auctions continued in New York.