Hôtel Drouot

Sales at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris rose by 15 per cent to €230m (£153m) in the first half of 2005.

A SMALL Renoir portrait painted in 1913, with an estimated value of €170,000-200,000 (£120,000-140,000), was stolen from the Tajan premises in Paris shortly before it was to be offered at a sale on March 31.

THE Chinese-born, French-based artists Zao Wou-Ki and Yan Pei Ming, who both featured among the successes at FIAC Paris, were also in demand at the sale staged by Cornette de St-Cyr (20.33/11.96% buyer’s premium) at Drouot Montaigne on the evening of October 11.

THE NAME of Jean-Baptiste de Machault d’Arnouville (1701-94), Finance and Navy Minister under Louis XV, provided lustrous provenance to the top lots at the sale of art and furniture held by Beaussant-Lefèvre (14.35-17.94% buyer’s premium) at Drouot on April 25.

A veritable feast of textiles from an older era will be up for grabs in a big way next month in Paris when French auctioneer Olivier Coutau-Begarie holds a mammoth two-day dispersal at Richelieu-Drouot on April 29 and 30 of over 5000 pieces of antique silks, tapestries and embroideries from the House of Hamot, a French textile retailer and manufacturer of carpets and tapestries.

One of the 2003 saleroom highlights in Paris promises to be the auction of the Collection of André Breton (1896-1966). The 5000-lot collection, consigned by Breton’s daughter and granddaughter, is expected to bring around £20m and will be sold in 24 sessions under the Calmels-Cohen hammer at Drouot from April 1-18.

FRANCE: Auction sales in Paris in the first six months of 2001 totalled Fr2.56bn (£240m), a rise of 10 per cent compared to the same period in 2000. Art sales (as opposed to sales of vehicles or industrial material) showed an even sharper increase, up 12 per cent at Fr2.1bn (£195m).

Work to transform and modernise the Hôtel Drouot has been delayed for a third time due to “technical and material constraints” and will now begin in March/April 2002 and last until September next year.

Four lots from a service once owned by the Duke of Orléans were among the more unusual offerings among the stash of 18th century Tournai porcelain presented by Beaussant-Lefèvre at Drouot on March 7.

FRANCE: JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY brought early Spring smiles to Drouot as his Maison du Jardinier (1739) pictured here, first shown at the Salon of 1740, sold to a French buyer for a world record Fr6.2m (£639,000) under the Le Blanc hammer on March 17.