Auctions

The Château of Versailles exercised its right of pre-emption to acquire an 18th century painting of its orangerie that was offered at auction.

One of the famed 16th century bronze plaques recovered from the charred ruins of the Benin Kingdom’s royal palace carries an estimate of $800,000-$1.2m at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Virginia on October 1.

Canterbury Cathedral’s prayers were answered when every one of the 144 lots from its cathedral stone sale were sold at Canterbury Auction Galleries at the weekend.

The art collection of the late Leslie Waddington, the pioneering contemporary art dealer, will go to auction next week and includes works by 20th-century icons such as Milton Avery, Josef Albers, Francis Picabia and Jean Dubuffet.

A sale of items once owned by President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy soared to a hammer total of $5.74m at Christie’s New York last week.

Fancy owning a piece of the Eiffel Tower, the ceiling from a Parisian boulangerie or butcher’s shop or an old seat from the Metro?

Islington Museum has paid £8000 for a screen collage by Joe Orton's lover and killer Kenneth Halliwell at a JP Humbert auction this week.

For gavel master Hugh Edmeades, remembering all the lots sold across a thirty-eight year career at Christie's could have been an impossible task if it were not for the fact he had kept a diary and written down everything he has ever sold.

A new online auction platform featuring free listings and eight percent commission launched yesterday.

Fashion designer Anya Hindmarch's stylistic input helped Sotheby’s sell £1.8m at its latest contemporary sale.

Not many cabinets can have been owned by a pope and a king but a piece of furniture bought by the J Paul Getty Museum at Sotheby’s Paris can make that proud claim.

The Cotswold Auction Company have moved into a new permanent saleroom in Cirencester.

SPECTACULAR sums were paid for Chinese ceramics devoted to tea drinking during last week’s Asian works of art sales in New York.

A D-Day Landings Omaha Beach flag is being offered at C&T Auctioneers on September 28.

A pair of Queen Victoria's drawers sold for a record-breaking £16,250 at Christie’s South Kensington on September 14.

A Fijian cannibal fork was sold at Duke’s in Dorchester for £7500 on September 16.

Two fresh to the market Edvard Munch prints are coming up for sale at Sotheby’s Prints & Multiples sale in London on September 27.

Chrisite’s New York hope match the record they set for Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) four years ago with a painting that comes to the market for the first time in 50 years.

The Dutch buyer of ‘the most valuable Second World War battle flag ever sold’ has loaned it to the National Military Museum in Soesterberg, the Netherlands.

Lord and Lady Attenborough’s collection of Pablo Picasso ceramics will be up for auction in November at Sotheby’s in London.