International

After weeks of legal wrangling, permission has finally been granted to sell property from the bankrupt Manhattan Old Master dealership Salander-O'Reilly Gallery.

Auctioneer unhappy about need to opt out at short notice

The Louvre have secured the return of a French Crown Jewel after 121 years, through a private sale with Christie’s New York.

CONCERN over credit rules in New York has led a lawyer to draw up guidelines to protect the rights of anyone consigning art to dealers for sale there.

Nearly two years after its rushed introduction in the Republic of Ireland, the Artist’s Resale Right is still causing confusion among auctioneers, dealers, artists and aministrators.

A world record price for a comic-strip illustration was paid at a specalist sale at Artcurial in Paris on March 29: Georges Remi Hergé’s 1932 ink-and-gouache design for the cover of Tintin en Amérique.

THE French government’s change of heart over the Artist’s Resale Right is being hailed a sea change by fellow ‘anti’ campaigners.

An image that may rewrite the history of photography has been withdrawn from a Sotheby’s New York sale pending further research.

A pair of Dutch library globes by the man regarded as father of western globe making, Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), now rank the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in Holland.

FRENCH culture minister Christine Albanel has announced a major overhaul of France’s auction system to meet President Sarkozy’s urgent call to “turn the French art market around”.

Organisers Artexis have cut Belgium's Eurantica fair from ten days to five next month.

Everyone knows about the legendary TEFAF waiting list. The pre-eminence of Maastricht among international art fairs means spaces at the town’s congress and exhibition centre in March are as rare as hens’ teeth.

Three Europeans and four Americans have been charged following the breaking of two international rings involved in the manufacture and distribution of fake 20th century prints.

The highlight of the Asia week series of auctions put on by the major salerooms was an impressive early Japanese wood sculpture of Buddha. It set a new auction high for a Japanese work of art when it was hammered down to the Japanese company Mitsukoshi Co Ltd for $12.8m (£6.7m) plus premium in Christie’s sale of Japanese and Korean art on March 18.

WITH their much-publicised US$30m Van Gogh, London and New York art dealers Dickinson had one of the most talked-about works at TEFAF Maastricht which closed on Sunday, March 16.

SPINK have taken another step in their bid to become global brand leaders in their field with another major acquisition in the United States. Last week they announced the purchase of New York’s oldest established coins dealers and auctioneers, R.M. Smythe & Company.

The 17.9m euro premium-inclusive total generated by Christie’s two-day sale of the ‘hidden’ collection of Charles Gillot in Paris last week may have wildly surpassed the auctioneers’ 5m euro predictions, but the performance of the 476-lot auction nonetheless ran pretty much along predicted lines.

WHEN bidders turned up at the first Indian Premier League cricket player auction in Mumbai last month, it was an antiques auctioneer from England they found on the rostrum.

A FRAUDSTER has tricked a US auction house into handing over a valuable Japanese artwork by posing as the representative of the buyer, an English dealer. It is thought they targeted the piece after realising that it was worth a great deal more than it sold for.

Two works by big league Impressionists dating from the early years of the movement are in the spotlight this spring.