Sotheby's

SOTHEBY’S Hong Kong spring sales series of classical, modern and contemporary Asian art, wine, jewellery and watches from April 4 to 8 were not as financially rewarding for the firm as in recent times.

SOTHEBY’S are to continue with their strategy of focusing on their top-end clients while reducing lot volumes below the $5000 level.

A LOAN exhibition of 20 works from the collection of American billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen opens at Sotheby’s in New York this week.

Just hours before Sotheby’s sold the contents of Gianni Versace’s Lake Como villa on March 18, they withdrew an 18th century portrait by Johann Zoffany after its subject’s family claimed that it had been stolen from their home in London 30 years ago.

SOTHEBY’S latest figures showed just how deeply they were hit by the art market slump since October, with revenues for their final quarter sales cut by more than half to $166.2m. Profits for the year are down 87 per cent.

SOTHEBY'S have completed the purchase of their New York headquarters in a $370m deal.

SALES in 2008 in Paris saw Sotheby’s and Christie’s occupy the top two spots for the first time – and open up a significant gap on the rest of the field.

NORMAN Adams Ltd., leading specialists in classic English period furniture for more than eight decades, are shutting their Knightsbridge showrooms and putting their current stock into a sale at Sotheby’s.

Old Masters provided some solace for the London auction rooms last week, posting the solid totals and some eye-catching prices to suggest this most established of markets will ride the downturn better than its modern counterparts.

In a week that saw the London salerooms offering their traditional December round of Old Master pictures, continental furniture and works of art, one of the strongest prices proved to be the £1m (plus premium) paid for this lively and intriguing 3ft (90cm) high bacchic bronze at Sotheby's on December 2.

with buy-in rates exceeding 60 per cent at many sales, Russian Week in London proved this hitherto burgeoning market to be as vulnerable to the economic crisis as any other.

SOTHEBY'S keenly anticipated sale of the collection of the late Sir David and Lady Scott on November 19 provided a confidence-boosting result. Any pre-sale fears that the ‘unfashionable’ Victorian pictures it contained might damage results were soon put aside.

THE latest series of contemporary art auctions in New York showed how much the market has fallen since its peak. With sale totals down well over 50 per cent from last year’s autumn series held at the height of the boom, the extent of the damage caused by the current economic distress and diminished confidence amongst buyers was manifest. The question now is will prices stabilise or fall further?

GUARANTEES slashed, costs to follow. That’s the message from Sotheby’s as they announce third quarter losses of $46.2m. And consignors will have to be more realistic about the deals they can secure and their expectations at auction in future.

Following the sometimes painful results of last week's Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York, there can now be little doubt that the worldwide financial distress is undermining demand for trophy paintings and sculpture. All sales missed their low estimates by some margin.

THE balloon-like market for contemporary art lost much of its air last week as both the Frieze Art Fair and its related auctions suffered the full force of the global economic crisis.

An American collector has filed two lawsuits against Sotheby's, alleging they concealed a financial interest in and inflated the price for an Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom that he bought in May for almost $10m.

Sotheby’s have announced that they are to open an office in Doha and are planning a series of auctions in the Qatari capital in early 2009.

As experienced art dealers discussed the £95.6m sale of 233 new works by Damien Hirst (b.1965), it was the word 'celebrity' that cropped up the most to explain the phenomenal prices seen at the Beautiful Inside my Head Forever sale.