International

US: SOTHEBY’S have opened their new-look, custom-built Manhattan headquarters at 1334 York Avenue, New York, adding six new floors above the four which previously housed the auction house.

SWEDEN at the end of the 19th century was the birthplace of notable inventors of mechanical music who later made their fortunes in America.

US: PROFITS from the catalogue for Christie’s New York’s October 27 and 28 Marilyn Monroe auction may bring as much as the sale itself.

NETHERLANDS: Van Gogh’s oil landscape A Park in Spring, was the highlight of the inaugural exhibition to mark the opening of Sotheby’s new Netherlands headquarters on October 15.

EIRE: The long-awaited auction of one of Ireland’s foremost collections took place in Dublin on October 14 when Mealy’s, in association with Christie’s, dispersed the contents of 25 Fitzwilliam Street Upper, former residence of the late James Murnaghan, a Justice of the Supreme Court and chairman of the National Gallery of Ireland.

GERMANY: THE German Society of Auctioneers, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer is mounting a legal challenge to prevent Internet auction firms from advertising their sales in Germany as public auctions or sales.

GERMANY: COMPANIES advertising public auctions or sales on the Internet in Germany are breaking the law and should be stopped, say the German Society of Auctioneers and Fine Arts, Der Bundesverband Deutscher Kunstversteigerer.

UK & US: A NEW Internet auction house, due to launch simultaneously in the United States and the UK on October 15, aims to woo dealers in high value art and antiques by special incentives and simplifying the process.

FRANCE: THE French government is to prosecute New York art dealer Adam Williams for handling stolen goods after a painting he bought at Christie’s in London turned out to be Nazi looted art. A successful prosecution could have serious repercussions for the Trade.

UK: THE Russians had the brains for a head start in the space race but the Americans possessed the capital to fund a sustained interest in rocket programmes.

UK & US: THE former Director of Phillips in America, Paul Roberts, has been appointed both vice chairman of the new-look Edinburgh outfit Lyon and Turnbull and president of Freeman Fine Arts of Philadelphia, with the aim of forging business links between Scotland and America's oldest independent auctioneers.

US: A NEW record for a United States coin has been achieved at auction in New York with the sale of a silver dollar for a premium-inclusive $4.14m (£2.63m) on August 30.

GERMANY: ARTLINK have conducted what is being claimed as the first live online art auction. The sale – of International Young Baltic Art – took place on the evening of Saturday, August 7 at Rostock in Germany.

US: TIFFANY stained glass authority Alistair Duncan was convicted on Thursday by a New York federal jury on all five counts of trafficking in Tiffany windows stolen from cemetaries and mausoleums.

GERMANY: INTERNET art auctioneer Artnet.com which floated on the Frankfurt exchange in May, have denied a claim by magazine Boerse Online that their main shareholders are selling their shares.

AT LEAST a dozen of the world’s top dealers appear to have lost goods as a result of a series of elaborate and sophisticated swindles carried out by a gang operating out of Northern Italy during the past nine months.

US: CHRISTIE'S have decided to place British expertise at the helm in New York with the promotion of their London managing director, Edward Dolman, to managing director of Christie’s in America.

AMSTERDAM: MAKERS of Jewish ritual metalwork tended to be a relatively conservative breed – slow to respond to wider artistic cross-currents – but illustrated above are a pair of English silver Torah finials or Rimmonim, 161/2in (42cm) high, which demonstrate there are exceptions to the rule.

EU: THE PROSPECT of droit de suite spreading throughout the European Union receded last week when the Internal Market Council found that resistance to the principle of artists’ resale rights had grown and the measure was shelved.

HOPE was rekindled last week that a last-minute change of heart in Europe could kill off the imposition of the artists resale levy, droit de suite, in the UK.