New York
At Christie’s Impressionist & Modern art evening sale in November, one of Claude Monet’s Grainstack paintings sold at $72.5m (£58m). The price set a record for Monet, outstripping the £36.5m paid for one of his Nympheas (Waterlilies) paintings.
South America
This summer Phillips announced that it had negotiated the sale of Baile en Tehuantepec by Diego Rivera (1886- 1957) for $15.75m (£12m), a record for any piece of Latin American art.
The buyer was Eduardo F Costantini, founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires where he plans to exhibit the painting.
Ireland
Is the Irish art market recovering? Among sales generating high totals this year was the collection of the late art dealer George McClelland offered at Whyte’s of Dublin in September, which reported its best result for an art auction since April 2008.
The sale was led by Matriarch, a unique cherrywood sculpture by Frederick Edward McWilliam that sold at €90,000 (£72,580).
Germany
A remarkable drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872) was one of the highlights of the year in Germany, selling at Bassenge auction house in Berlin on November 25. Recently restituted to the family of a Holocaust victim, it easily overshot an estimate of €450,000 and sold for €1.7m (£1.44m) to a US collector of 19th century German Romantic drawings.
London
Proof that the right Old Master will make a headline price, Lot and his Daughters by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) sold for £40m at Christie’s in July, a house record for an Old Master painting. The sale underlined London’s strength as a key place to sell the best traditional art.
Geneva
At its watch sale in Geneva in November, Phillips set an auction record for any wristwatch when a Patek Philippe Reference 1518 was knocked down for SFr9.6m (£7.7m).
The watch was one of only four examples made in stainless steel – most of the 281 pieces with this reference are in pink gold.
Geneva remains jewellery’s key domain. In May, Christie’s posted a high for any jewel when the ‘Oppenheimer Blue’ diamond sold for SFr56.8m (£39.6m).
Paris
When it comes to tribal art, Paris remains the leading global location.
In May this sculpture made of strands of coconut fibre, coral, glass and gold veneer was offered at Binoche et Giquello’s sale at Drouot.
Made by the Akyé people from the lagoon regions of the southern Ivory Coast, it was hammered down at €500,000 (£416,670), at which point it was preempted by Paris’ museum dedicated to ethnography, the Musée du Quai Branly.
South Africa
Modern art continues to dominate the South African market. One of the highlights at Strauss & Co’s sale of South African and International art in Cape Town in March was Maggie Laubser’s (1886-1973) Birds and Boats.
This signed oil on canvas laid down on board fetched R1.48m (£66,300). Works by Laubser have made over £200,000 at auction.
Denmark
Bruun Rasmussen of Copenhagen posted a house record on November 30 when this Yongle period (1403-24) meiping vase was knocked down at Dkr12m (£1.37m) – the highest price for any piece of porcelain ever sold at auction in Denmark.
Estimated at Dkr300,000-500,000, the vase was brought to Denmark by Tage Wøldike Schmidt (1915-2010), who was managing director of the East Asiatic Company, and will now be returning to China.
Sweden
The collection of management consultant Bertil Neuman (1921- 2011) provided a boost to Sweden’s Uppsala at the end of the year with 11 works by Pablo Picasso making a combined Skr33.3m (£2.92m).
Leading the group was this oil on canvas from 1964 titled Fillette au béret which went over an Skr12m- 18m estimate and sold at Skr21.4m (£1.87m).
Australia
Australian auctioneers Mossgreen achieved an Aus$2m record for a single-owner sale of Asian art sold down-under in December when it offered the Raphy Star collection in Sydney.
The top lot was this Chinese polychrome carved wood sculpture of a Bodhisattva, Song Dynasty (11th century), that overtook an Aus$100,000-150,000 estimate and was knocked down at Aus$320,000 (£189,415).
Hong Kong
Hong Kong remains the place to sell the best Asian art. Among the highlights sold in 2016 was this imposing brass alloy figure of Canda Vajrapani, right. It set an auction record for a Tibetan sculpture when it was knocked down at HK$42.5m (£4.34m) at Bonhams.
Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull held its first sale in Hong Kong in May, with the star lot being this Xuande (1426-35) mark and period blue and white ‘dragon’ stem cup. It sold at HK$36m (£3.27m) to a collector from China.
