France

A Paris auction firm has been banned from holding sales for nine months and two of its auctioneers suspended for three months following a disciplinary hearing by the government body appointed to oversee auction practice in France.

The annual sales figures issued for several of the major French auction houses (or French branches of international auction houses) showed that for many, though not all, they saw an increase over the previous year despite what has been a difficult economic climate.

The French art world has welcomed their government’s decision to cut, rather than increase, the rate on tax for works imported in to France from outside the EU.

Demonstrating the benefits that provincial auctioneers continue to derive from the growth in demand for Modern British art, a number of this summer’s sale highlights in the regions were supplied by 20th century pictures.

Several of the main French auction firms and French branches of international houses have produced their half-year sales figures.

An exceptional piece of 17th century Japanese export lacquer with a provenance to match has produced the highest auction price in France this year when it was sold to the Rijksmuseum for a hammer price of €5.9m (£5.26m).

A new decree under French law has banned the mailing of banknotes, coins, jewellery and precious metals using the standard French postal system.

Paris auctioneers Gros & Delettrez have announced the sale of 350 lots of haute couture from Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain, muse to the late Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s, and later an artistic advisor at Dior.

The Charles Le Brun oil on canvas discovered hanging in the Paris Hôtel Ritz proved to be the high point of Christie’s latest sale of Old Master and 19th century paintings in Paris.

The latest mixed-owner sale of Old Masters, furniture and objets d’art in Paris held at Drouot by Beaussant Lefèvre saw some estimate-crushing prices and two pre-emptions by the Louvre.

Paris auction house Piasa are making a bold leap across the Seine and opening a new saleroom on the rue du Bac, thereby becoming the first Parisian auctioneers to hold sales on the Left Bank.

An Old Master by the 17th century French painter Charles le Brun has been discovered hanging unattributed in the Hôtel Ritz in Paris.

After a tough economic year, several French auction firms have now released their sales figures for 2012.

Egyptian artefacts are one of the bullish sectors in the antiquities market and this has been reflected in sale results on both sides of the Channel last month.

The late November antiquities double bill at Drouot held by Pierre Bergé et Associés kicks off on the 29th with a library of works on Egyptology.

The specialist Old Master fair ‘Paris Tableau’ set up last year in the French capital is about to embark on its second staging.

In the face of strong opposition from the art world, the French government appeared to back down last week from a move to include works of art valued at over €50,000 in annual assessments for wealth tax.

Rare early paintings often come to major centres such as London, Paris and New York but later this month it will be the turn of Marseille in the South of France where the Maison de Ventes Leclere will offer a chance to purchase a fragment of an Italian primitive from the early Renaissance.

In what has been described as “the largest single transaction to ever occur in the field of decorative arts”, California Bay Area auctioneers Michaan’s have purchased, for sale, an unparalleled collection of Tiffany and other Art Nouveau works of art.

Parisian auctioneer Claude Aguttes has been banned from holding sales for two months following an investigation into the sale of a Russian painting at the Hôtel Drouot in October 2007.