Christie's

Christie’s are to adjust their buyer’s premium thresholds, with effect from June 2, in line with changes announced by Sotheby’s last week.

THE gargantuan sums of money being spent at the top end of the contemporary art market continued unabated as the latest sales series in New York saw a staggering overall premium-inclusive total of $990m.

Fears that New York’s flagship May sales might usher in a market meltdown were allayed last week as Sotheby’s and Christie’s posted solid results for Impressionist and Modern art.

There was high drama at Christie's latest decorative arts sale in London, when half the £3.1m total came from this Glasgow school panel by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, which sold to an American collector for £1.5m (plus premium).

The Louvre have secured the return of a French Crown Jewel after 121 years, through a private sale with Christie’s New York.

Two strong results for very different pieces were produced in Christie’s double bill of English furniture on April 24.

Christie’s are confidently expecting to set a new auction record for British furniture in London on June 18 when they offer a small but exclusive auction of just a dozen lots under the title 12: Exceptional furniture.

London’s latest series of Islamic auctions, held from April 7-11, produced a series of record-breaking statistics. The result of the week came at Sotheby’s on April 9 when a 14 1/2in (37cm) long iron and copper key to the ka’ba, the holiest place in the Islamic world, sold for £8.2m, establishing a new auction high for any Islamic work of art.

A pair of Dutch library globes by the man regarded as father of western globe making, Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), now rank the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in Holland.

It’s hard to believe there are still undiscovered works by the most renowned artists hanging unnoticed in dusty corners of private houses. But that is what a Christie’s valuation team discovered last year.

The highlight of the Asia week series of auctions put on by the major salerooms was an impressive early Japanese wood sculpture of Buddha. It set a new auction high for a Japanese work of art when it was hammered down to the Japanese company Mitsukoshi Co Ltd for $12.8m (£6.7m) plus premium in Christie’s sale of Japanese and Korean art on March 18.

The 17.9m euro premium-inclusive total generated by Christie’s two-day sale of the ‘hidden’ collection of Charles Gillot in Paris last week may have wildly surpassed the auctioneers’ 5m euro predictions, but the performance of the 476-lot auction nonetheless ran pretty much along predicted lines.

Two works by big league Impressionists dating from the early years of the movement are in the spotlight this spring.

A highlight of Christie’s summer sale season in London will be their 350-lot sale of the collection of the late Hon Simon Sainsbury, scion of the famous retailing family.

Knock-on effect of turbulence in money markets is less dramatic than feared at art auctions

SOTHEBY’S and Christie’s have launched an unprecedented attack on France’s auction laws in a bid to halt Paris’s decades-long decline as a market force.

CHRISTIE’S have maintained their lead over their rivals in wine sales thanks mainly to strong totals posted in Europe.

Christie’s have confirmed their position as the art market’s biggest business, announcing 2007 premium inclusive sales of £3.1bn ($6.3bn).

Christie’s South Kensington have announced their new programme of Interior sales for 2008 and it is one which shows an ever greater commitment to a retail approach to handling the middle market.

Christie’s held the first auction of spirits in New York since Prohibition on December 8.