Europe

Christie’s have announced a premium-inclusive £1.2bn ($1.8bn) in sales for the first six months of 2009, down 35 per cent on the same period last year, when results were £1.8bn ($3.5bn).

COLOGNE auctioneers Van Ham offered this oil painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), hidden from public view for over 70 years, at their latest sale.

THE tide has turned in favour of eBay in the legal war over the sale of counterfeit goods on their site after a French court backed them against L’Oreal.

SPECULATION is rising that many more restituted works of art may end up being offered for sale following a ruling made by Vienna’s city council.

Next month a Russian businessman and collector will open the world’s first museum dedicated to the Russian Imperial jeweller Fabergé.

DUTCH police have recovered eight paintings stolen from Robert Noortman’s gallery in Maastricht in 1987. The works, which included valuable works by Renoir and Pissarro, were traced to two small towns in the south of Holland after an alleged middleman in Dubai made an attempt to sell the paintings back to the insurers for a reported €5m (£4.5m).

THE French auctioneers' association SYMEV have launched their annual weekend Follement Marteau to promote buying at auction on March 28-29.

As befitting a sale with world-famous brand associations, Christie’s dispersal of the Yves Saint Laurent–Pierre Bergé collection in Paris was more like a rock concert or fashion show than an auction.

IN Paris the auction year will start in the most spectacular manner with the Yves Saint Laurent/Bergé collection sale on February 23-24. But 2009 holds out promise for the French art market in other areas too.

THE global credit crunch's latest victims are the Moscow World Fine Art Fair and the Salzburg World Fine Art Fair, which will not go ahead this year.

THE appeal of Paris as an auction centre for jewellery received a boost at the start of the year, when France slashed import VAT on “rare” or “high value” jewellery from 19.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

The Irish Government have decided to go the same way as the UK in not applying the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) to the heirs of dead artists until 2012. The extension means that ARR will continue to apply to works by living artists only.

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.

A FAMILY feud has led to yet another cancellation of the sale of 63 works of art by Oskar Schlemmer, one of the central figures of the Bauhaus.

NEXT year's 22nd TEFAF Maastricht will see a record 240 exhibitors from 15 countries (this year there were 227) and for the first time there will be a dedicated section for 20th century and contemporary design.

PERSONAL intervention by French President Nicolas Sarkozy has raised the stakes in the battle over extending the Artist’s Resale Right (Droit de Suite) to the heirs of dead artists.

Christie’s have announced the exact dates and location for the Paris sale of the collection put together by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. It will be held jointly by two auction houses, Christie’s and Pierre Bergé & Associates, on February 23, 24 and 25 next year.

PRE-COLOMBIAN art valued at €5m in total was withdrawn from sale in Paris on September 12 after the last-minute intervention of the Mexican Embassy.

Christie’s have announced that they are to sell the multi-million collection of Yves St Laurent, who died in June, and his business partner Pierre Bergé in February next year.