International

Christie’s have announced a new themed week of sales in New York next April.

“Button who?” When Shropshire documents consultant Ben Jones was told that an American client was considering selling the clipped signature of Button Gwinnett he reached for the search engine.

Stakeholders in the Italian art market will meet lawmakers this week in the hope of overturning legislation they say has hampered the country’s art market for a century.

This painting, found by John Nye of Bloomfield, New Jersey saleroom Nye & Company Auctions leaning up against a cellar wall, became one of the sleepers of the year on September 22.

Florence’s longstanding Antiques Fair, the ‘Biennale Internationale dell’ Antiquariato di Firenze’, opens next week in the city’s 17th century Palazzo Corsini, running from September 26 to October 4.

Online dealer marketplace 1stdibs has raised between $50m and $60m from venture capitalists Insight Venture Partners, Fortune magazine reports.

The ‘Parcours des Mondes’, Paris’ annual tribal art trail, began last week in the Saint Germain quarter of the city.

Sotheby’s will open an office in Mumbai, as they bid to expand their Indian businesses with two ‘strategic’ appointments in the region.

An American businessman has been charged in a New York court accused of applying improper valuations to items sold from his art and antiques collection.

Phillips are to begin-streaming their sales live on eBay’s platform for upmarket auctions of fine art and antiques.

Christie’s have announced a major highlight for the upcoming New York auction series. They are offering Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché (Reclining Nude) which they have estimated at in excess of $100m.

The collection of the late A Alfred Taubman is to be offered in a series of sales in New York, starting this autumn.

Guillaume Cerutti, chief executive of Sotheby’s France and European deputy chairman, is to leave and join Christie’s as president for London, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Russia and India.

A group of 32 ancient gold ornaments have been returned to China following claims they had been illegally removed.

In Germany, software billionaire Hasso Plattner has become the latest collector to demonstrate opposition to the proposed cultural property law changes.

Coin specialists AH Baldwin & Sons are encouraging their customers to sign the petition opposing an amendment to the controversial German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law.

Dutch online auction business Catawiki has raised $82m to build its business.

A London dealer has welcomed a new wide-ranging bill aimed at amending the law passed in the US last year banning the commercial trade in elephant ivory.

Opposition to controversial new laws governing cultural heritage in Germany is gathering pace. Auctioneers, dealers and collectors are backing a petition ‘preserving the right to privately collect’ and calling for German the government to rethink its proposals.

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.