Switzerland

Two Russian diamond necklaces, with links to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva next month with a $10m estimate.

Economist and author of the annual TEFAF Art Market Report Clare McAndrew has left TEFAF to join with Art Basel, it has been announced.

A watch by Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) became the second most expensive piece by the Swiss maker when it sold to a private Swiss museum for triple-estimate SFr3.25m (£2.35m) including premium at Christie’s Geneva.

The Oppenheimer Blue diamond set the world record for any jewel sold at auction at Christie’s Geneva yesterday.

The Art Loss Register (ALR) has located two paintings stolen from a home in Amsterdam in 2010.

The Kunstmuseum Bern’s announcement that it would accept the Gurlitt bequest (aside from any Nazi-looted art) has been followed by a pledge by Germany’s culture minister to return the disputed Matisse and other works to the families of their original owners.

Sotheby’s Geneva managed to grab the headlines when the Henry Graves Supercomplication set a record for a timepiece at auction.

Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.

Sotheby’s have had to buy back the 59.60 carat flawless fancy vivid pink diamond they sold in Geneva last November for a world record $83m.

Sotheby’s have announced that they are to offer a flawless 59.6-carat pink diamond for sale in Geneva on November 13 with a record asking price of $60m.

SOTHEBY’S set a new auction record for a jewel in Geneva when a 24.78-carat fancy intense pink diamond sold to London jeweller Laurence Graff at SFr40.5m (£25.6m) plus premium.

THE battle over Antiquorum, the world’s leading clock and watch auction house, has stepped up a gear, with significant moves from both sides.

Antiquorum, the world’s leading watch auctioneers, insist it will be “business as usual” following the shock departure this August of the Geneva firm’s charismatic founder, Osvaldo Patrizzi, after a row with Japanese owners Artist House Holdings, who acquired Antiquorum for a reported $30m in 2006.

Cadogan Tate Fine Art have launched a new weekly transport service from London and Paris to Switzerland to meet the growing demand for discreet fine art transport.

THE Swiss authorities have launched a criminal investigation into scam guide firms and their associated debt recovery agencies.

This year’s jewellery sales in the upscale Swiss winter resort of St Moritz – an annual fixture since 1995 – again fomented plenty of interest among the well-heeled private clientele in town at the height of the skiing season.

ANOTHER Greek author whom Aldus published was Aristotle, whose Opera Omnia appeared in a five-part, seven-volume edition between 1495 and 1498.

GLASSWORKS by Emile Gallé thought to be worth over £1.5m have been stolen from a Swiss museum. Thieves seized 15 items by the French master craftsman in the raid on the Neumann Foundation, housed in the castle of Gingins overlooking Lake Geneva, on October 27.

SWITZERLAND hosts a new international fair later this year with the launch of The Basel Ancient Art Fair from November 12 to 17 at the historic Wenkenhof, just outside the city of Basel.

AN auction of the most comprehensive collection of the ancient coins of Olympia in the year that Athens hosts the modern Olympic Games is likely to meet with very considerable success.