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This 6¾in (17cm) high, solid ivory head of the Virgin Mary, Hispano-Philippines, dating to the 17th-18th century, is the winner of the ATG Award for Asian art in London.

A thin head by Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) was one of a handful of market-fresh works that helped lift the latest Impressionist & Modern art sales in New York.

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.

ATG’s sister operation, online auction platform the-saleroom.com, has gone some way to solving the problem of alerting auctioneers to rogue bidders under the Data Protection Act.

This remarkable fossil of one of the largest animals ever to have walked the Earth becomes the first large dinosaur skeleton to be offered at auction in the UK at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex, on November 27.

This John Constable (1776-1837) portrait has been acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland from the estate of the artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) through the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu scheme.

Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex had to postpone last week’s Interiors sale after the St Jude’s storm knocked out their electricity supply for two days.

An 18th century casket made from fragments of Chinese porcelain has been bought by the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham.

Size, quality, condition and subject matter are the ingredients by which Berlin porcelain plaques are judged.

As with many areas of collectable ceramics, the marketplace for Sylvac animals has been rather muted in recent times. But, if prices have flat-lined for most pieces then there are still collectors waiting in the wings should something truly rare present itself.

In keeping with changing market trends, Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury have launched a new Chinese version of their website.

A major bidding competition arose in Edinburgh last week as auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull offered this Old Master painting as part of their sale of contents from Lingholm House in Cumbria.

Bonhams have unveiled their new £30m headquarters at 101 New Bond Street, laying claim to the title of the world’s top saleroom complex.

Bonhams have promoted Suzannah Yip to the UK Board of Directors with immediate effect.

Little did “the Reverend Dr Walter Blandford Warden of Wadham Colledge” of Oxford University realise that one day his name would have such significance in the world of newspapers.

Another Henry Moore sculpture has been taken in the latest in a spate of thefts targeting works by the artist.

Auctioneer John Nicholson has called for a review of data protection rules when it comes to alerting salerooms to serial non-payers and problem bidders.

The violin played by Titanic bandmaster Wallace Hartley as the ship slid beneath the waves on the morning of April 15, 1912, was always going to a) attract massive worldwide interest and b) bring in the big bucks at auction.

Sworders have sold the contents of Debden Manor, Essex from their saleroom in Stansted Mountfitchet – a house sale titled ‘An Architect’s Eye, A Collector’s Passion’.

The Association of Accredited Auctioneers (Triple-A), founded in 2012 by UK regional auctioneers to attract Chinese buyers, are to hold a second auction of Western antiques in China.