Auctioneers

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.

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

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.

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.

Last week was a busy one for glass and ceramics in the London rooms with five auctions taking place over the space of 48 hours and some bullish prices for top pieces.

Paris auctioneers Gros & Delettrez have announced the sale of 350 lots of haute couture from Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain, muse to the late Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s, and later an artistic advisor at Dior.

Fellows’ latest quarterly Vintage & Modern Wristwatch auction included a rare 1940s Rolex Oyster, the so-called ‘monobloc’ chronograph.

The Mishneh Torah was withdrawn from a recent Sotheby’s sale at the eleventh hour after vendors Michael and Judy Steinhard struck a private treaty sale with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Pinault family, owners of Christie’s and the luxury goods group PPR, are to hand back to China the two Qianlong bronzes that caused great upset when offered for sale in Paris four years ago.

Featuring only 22 lots, Sotheby’s latest sale of Orientalist art was a small affair but one that definitely packed a big punch.

This previously unrecorded late work by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97), ‘Landscape with Rainbow’, sold for £125,000 at Bellmans in Wisborough Green, West Sussex.

The Charles Le Brun oil on canvas discovered hanging in the Paris Hôtel Ritz proved to be the high point of Christie’s latest sale of Old Master and 19th century paintings in Paris.