Italy

A bunch of flowers sold to a private buyer brought a welcome fragrance for Christie’s (24-18.5% buyer’s premium, excluding VAT) in their auction of Modern and Contemporary Art in Milan on May 26, and proved a powerful attraction, with a full room and numerous bidders on the telephone.

ACCORDING to residents of the Trapani region in Sicily, the coral to be found there is the reddest in the world. This may be myth but what certainly is not fabrication is the popularity and desirability of objects made from this striking natural material.

ART collectors in Italy in possession of illegally acquired antiquities may now be able to come clean to the authorities and keep the works concerned.

Gino Severini’s Les objets deviennent peinture (vase bleu et maïs) was one of the most significant lots in Christie’s 310-lot auction of Contemporary art in Rome on December 18. Dating from 1965, this picture was the last oil still life he was to paint and, indeed, one of the last works to be finished before his death.

THE merger of Italy’s two leading domestic auction houses, Semenzato and Finarte, has won the support of shareholders, who voted on September 4.

ITALY: A record price for a painting by Carlo Carrà was established in Italy back on May 21 in a sale of contemporary art held by Christie’s in Milan.

ITALY: VENICE-based auction house Semenzato is to be merged into Finarte of Milan in early August with a view to taking on Sotheby’s and Christie’s head on in Italy.

ITALY: Spring has been slow to bring a little sunshine to the auction world in Italy, with rather lacklustre sales for Finarte and Semenzato’s opening moves. It will remain to be seen whether the scandal that has enveloped Corbelli, majority shareholder of Semenzato and chairman of Finarte, will affect the performance of the auction houses (that are not accused of any wrongdoing) in the more important sales later in the season.

The Italian art market is in shock at the arrest of one of its major players for the sale of fake works of art and other crimes.

ITALY: Back on November 4, Semenzato (19 per cent buyer’s premium, including VAT) held a sale of furniture and works of art in Venice in which an 18th century Venetian painted chest of drawers, pictured right, produced the highest price of the day at Li160m (£52,460).

SALES IN ITALY: The first auctions to take place in Italy this autumn in the midst of these days of gloom have been encouraging. In Rome on October 30, Christie’s (22.5/18.5% buyer’s premium) sold the contents of the residences of a collector, Michele Falzone del Barbarò. All 362 lots sold for around £400,000, far exceeding the auctioneers’ expectations.

ITALY: NOW that Christie’s numismatic sales have been subsumed into Spink’s they are no longer held in London. However, they offered some very appealing pieces in Rome on December 13 and 14.

ITALY: THIS quasi-Roman coin (34mm) of Hadrian – actually a ‘cabinet piece’ made in 16th century Padua (the main centre for this type of replica) for the more romantic type of collector – made Li500,000 (£170).

ITALY: ANOTHER Renaissance magnate, the Doge of Venice, Antonio Grimani (1521-23). His (29mm diameter) portrait medal made Li2m (£670).

ITALY: MINIATURE-like, this (33 x 47mm) silver medal of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II (1619-37) made Li950,000 (£315). The Imperial Crown on the reverse is preserved in the Hofschatz in Vienna.

AT LEAST a dozen of the world’s top dealers appear to have lost goods as a result of a series of elaborate and sophisticated swindles carried out by a gang operating out of Northern Italy during the past nine months.

ITALY: SOTHEBY’S have been informed that they can release to their purchasers the 23 lots on which the Italian authorities had requested a review of export licences immediately prior to the three-day sale of the Rossi Collection which ended on March 12.