Auctions

A Ming stem cup sold at Lyon & Turnbull’s debut auction in Hong Kong today for £3.68m (HK$41,560,000) including buyer’s premium.

The Musée du Quai Branly, the dedicated museum for tribal art which opened in Paris in 2006, has been a key factor in boosting the French capital as a world centre for ethnography in both scholarly and commercial terms.

New books and works on paper specialists Forum Auctions will hold their first London sale at the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair on July 13-14.

A private US collector spent £2.48m at Christie’s, acquiring all four of the early William Shakespeare folios on offer in a specially-staged auction.

The owner of a new company operating High Road Auctions in Chiswick has told ATG he will be investing in the refurbishment of the premises and has already created escrow accounts to separate client’s money from day-to-day business expenses.

A rare Rolex Submariner took a record £160,000 plus buyer’s premium at a Gardiner Houlgate sale in Wiltshire on May 25.

Christie’s have announced that a major landscape by John Constable will be among the works on offer at their Defining British Art sale in London this summer.

French art market associations have protested at environment minister Ségolène Royal’s plan to push for “a ban on any kind of ivory trade in France”.

A series of antique weapons were sold by Bonhams earlier this month missing their ivory elements after the items had been surrendered to the UK’s Border Force.

An early printed copy of the laws of rugby appeared at Rogers Jones in Cardiff as part of a themed sale titled Sweat, Mud & Blood. Auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones said: ”In 25 years of our business, it is the most valuable book we have sold and probably the smallest.”

Christie’s have admitted to “an honest and genuine mistake” by putting up for sale an ivory and kutch silver trophy that contravened CITES regulations.

Bonhams are launching into the internet-only auction arena with a timed sale of watches from a single-owner collection of a European nobleman.

Football Sport Auctions Limited, a Merseyside company specialising in auctioning football memorabilia, ceased trading in April owing large sums to a long list of consignors.

A signed copy of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 promising freedom to all slaves in the rebel states will be offered at an upcoming Sotheby’s sale in New York.

A private collection of Charles Dickens’ novels put together by a collector in the early 20th century went under the hammer in Cuttlestones' latest sale.

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.

A large scrimshaw-decorated nautilus shell by Charles B Wood sold for an unexpected £8500 at Charles Miller’s latest sale of maritime antiques in London. It sold to a UK private collector.

A pair of Daoguang (1821-50) mark and period vases sold for £85,000 at a recent sale held at Halls of Shrewsbury.

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

Eric Bijzet has become the latest expert to leave Sotheby’s as he plans to set up on his own as a dealer back home in Amsterdam.