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Christie’s and Sotheby’s failed to establish saleroom predominance in Paris in 2002, the first full year in which, thanks to France’s recent auction reform, they have been allowed to stage auctions on French soil.

THE future of Stonegate Antiques Centre in York has been thrown into confusion amid a legal row and a police investigation into whether owner Anthony Gilberthorpe should face criminal charges.

THE Tate Gallery has launched a campaign to raise £12.5m to acquire Sir Joshua Reynolds’ celebrated portrait of Omai, the South Sea Islander who took London Society by storm in the 18th century.

Deal clears way for leaseback of building: Sotheby's will be able to clear up to $100m of debt – including their recent $20m European Commission fine – by selling their York Avenue headquarters in New York.

Coming up in Galashiels... The Yorkshire Arts and Crafts cabinetmaker Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson hardly needs an introduction. His distinctive adzed oak furniture, each piece relief-carved with a small mouse, proved so successful that a menagerie of imitators sprang up in the 1950s and ’60s.

SLOAN’S auctioneers of Washington DC have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a bid to keep the company afloat. The move follows recent reports that the company had debts of up to $5m and a string of unpaid consignors.

A VENDOR who believes an auctioneer’s negligence cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds says he will sue despite leading experts dismissing the disputed piece as a 20th century reproduction.

Does the fine arts business warrant professional qualifications? What form should the education take? Should there be only one body representing the profession or several representing different aspects?

BONHAMS will call their newly merged American company Bonhams and Butterfields from January 1 and are sending out group managing director Malcolm Barber from London to San Francisco to run it.

RICHARD Madley, former president of Christie’s East, New York, has returned to the UK and joined Hamptons with a view to increasing the firm’s presence in the auction market.

Understandably, the Russians left this one behind when they liberated the Reichstag in 1945, but a Tommy NCO with a sense of humour decided to rescue this beleaguered portrait of the First World War German Field Marshall and Weimar president Paul von Hindenburg, right, from the ruins and take him back to the West Country.

Just where were those bears made? The familiar stands, seats and other furnishings fashioned as realistically carved bears, usually from limewood, have traditionally been attributed to the Black Forest region of West Germany but recent researches suggest that Switzerland is a more likely source.

WHILE the Irish picture market continues to boom, the Scottish market showed serious jitters at Bonhams Edinburgh (17.5% buyer’s premium) on the evening of December 5.

A combination of vendors reluctant to consign the best quality goods and cautious bidding from the trade created a fairly low-key atmosphere at London’s traditional pre-Christmas round of Old Master picture sales.

HOW can coins being sold on the rostrum in New York be sitting safely locked up in London and elsewhere at the same time? That is the conundrum facing the coins and medals world following the publication of a catalogue and results from a sale organised in New York by Riccardo Paolucci, a Yorkshire-based Italian dealer.

It must be the dream insurance policy: compensation for loss and the return of the goods stolen. But for security giant Chubb, it was a claim too far when wealthy art lover Michael Clarke-Jervoise demanded he be handed back a 17th century Dutch masterpiece for which they had earlier paid him £125,000 in compensation.

Thanks to the combination of sporting subject matter and extremely slick technique, Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) continues to be one of the few early 20th century British painters to command a truly international following among the world’s richest private collectors.

Coming up on December 11, 12 and 13 is Rupert Toovey & Co’s Sale of Antiques, Fine Art & Collectors’ Items, which will be the inaugural sale at their new Spring Gardens salerooms in Washington, West Sussex.

ONE of the most bizarre and unexpected results at Tennants’ sale in North Yorkshire on 21-22 December involved a collection of more than 200 19th century marbles, a selection of which are shown right.

Pint-sized dealers might be interested in getting hold of this immaculate little suit in black wool and cream cotton, measuring just 2ft 1in (63cm) from collar to trouser bottom, which is being offered by Bonhams in Knowle on December 11.