International

Look back through the provenance of any major Impressionist work and the chances are it will have passed through the hands of Paul Durand-Ruel.

Christie’s evening sale post-war & Contemporary art in London posted a decent performance with some of the biggest names in the market headlining the auction.

The Black Beauty, the prototype for all Gibson Les Paul guitars, will appear at Guernsey Auctions’ February 19 sale in New York.

Strong sales of Modern and Contemporary art plus the Félix Marcilhac decorative arts collection helped propel Sotheby’s to the highest auction total in France in 2014, with sales figures of €213m.

The owner of leading south Florida auction house Elite Decorative Arts has pleaded guilty to wildlife trafficking and agreed to a fine of $1.5m.

This version of John Constable’s (1776-1837) celebrated painting ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ sold for $4.5m (£3.1m) at Sotheby’s Old Master sale in New York yesterday. It was an oil sketch with quite a backstory.

Sotheby's have announced a new buyer’s premium structure in New York. Effective from February 1, the rates will apply as follows:

The heavy volume of snow on the East Coast of America has led to the cancelling and rescheduling of auctions.

Heritage Auctions of Dallas and New York have reported their best year ever in 2014, with sales topping $969m.

As Frieze week in London has shown, once one art fair in a given city – London, New York, Paris – gains critical mass, others spring up around it.

David and Lee Ann Lester have cancelled their American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach, Florida at the last moment, citing changing market forces.

What has been billed as the most significant sale of French 17th and 18th century paintings for 20 years was announced earlier this month.

Philatelic and numismatic specialists Spink have posted annual sales figures of just under £29m.

Delftware experts Aronson of Amsterdam have recently reunited this pair of c.1690 Delft ‘bouquetière’ figures depicting William and Mary.

An example of the first of America’s iconic silver dollars will be on sale at Spink USA later this month.

More than half the receipts from Christie’s inaugural Exceptional sale in New York came from a single lot. And it was one with quite a history.

“It is a somewhat incoherent narrative, which, however, gives Lon Chaney an opportunity to turn up in an uncanny disguise and also to manifest his powers as Scotland Yard’s expert hypnotist. You are therefore treated to close-ups of Mr Chaney’s rolling orbs, which, fortunately, do not exert their influence on the audience.”

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury have announced two new alliances as they reshape the wider business as part of the Stanley Gibbons Group.

One of the greatest ‘barn finds’ ever has uncovered 60 classic cars – just one of which is a rare Ferraris valued at several million pounds – in outbuildings in the west of France.

The French National Antique Dealers’ Association (Syndicat National des Antiquaires), organisers of the long-running Paris ‘Biennale des Antiquaires’, have decided to mount an additional new annual fair for the French capital – the first to be held next spring.