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A demand from the National Archives for lots to be withdrawn from auction at Tennants of Leyburn could have wider implications for the trade in historical documents.

Almost exactly a year after Graham Budd set a record for any football programme at auction he has done it again.

The name of 83-year-old Sister Wendy Beckett, reclusive nun and famous TV art critic, doesn’t always meet a raptuorous response in the art world, but there is no doubt that the public at large love her.

Possibly dating from the reign of Louis XIV, this fine boulle casket and stand was among an assortment of jewellery, silver, furniture and pictures at Thomas R. Callan’s sale in Ayr, south west Scotland.

Dealers in New York can no longer use works consigned to them for sale by artists – or monies raised from their sale, beyond their own commissions – as debt collateral.

Dreweatts will be conducting the first auction of a complete RHS Chelsea garden during this year’s flower show.

A new and alarming scam guide is targeting the trade with demands linked to European Union regulations and focusing on VAT.

Billed as “the most important early printed book to be offered this century”, a deluxe vellum copy of the ‘Opera’ of Virgil is being offered at Christie’s on June 12.

Christie’s evening sale of Contemporary art in New York last night posted a hammer total of $435.5m (£294.2m).

Barnett Newman (1905-70) and Gerhard Richter (b.1932) starred at Sotheby’s evening sale of Contemporary art last night as the run of strong performing sales in this sector showed little sign of abating.

Holding a major silver sale days after the melt price has plummeted by about £3 an ounce is hardly ideal timing.

Sotheby’s lost $22.3m from January to March 2013, more than twice the amount for the same period in 2012.

The highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s sale of Decorative Arts was this copper and brass electrolier made in the workshops of the designer and architect William Arthur Smith Benson c.1900.

Art dealer Niall Fairhead is leading a new campaign to persuade the Government to raise the Artist’s Resale Right threshold from €1000 to the €3000 stipulated by the European Commission.

A painting by Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) entitled ‘Le petit pâtissier’ was the top lot of Christie’s latest evening sale of Impressionist & Modern art in New York.

Pearls and coloured stones remain strong – but, fuelled by interest from China (and, to a lesser, extent, the Middle East), so does amber.

Paul Cézanne’s ‘Les pommes’ led the way at Sotheby’s latest evening sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York.

Standing in the same spot where he had placed the winning £3.25m bid for an Egyptian statue of Isis six months before, London dealer Daniel Katz was again in action at Christie’s South Kensington’s latest antiquities sale.

The ambitious project that made 210,000 publicly-owned oil, tempera and acrylic paintings available to view online for free has taken another important step forward thanks to winning £125,000 funding.

It has a face value of ten shillings but a price tag of Aus$3.5m (£2.3m) at Coinworks, the specialist dealers and auctioneers of Melbourne.