News

THIS iron casket with gold and silver damascening decoration provided the high point of the sale conducted by Shapes of Edinburgh on March 7, selling at £37,000.

AUCTIONEERS’ liability for their catalogue descriptions may soon stretch far beyond the saleroom – even to third parties not involved in bidding – if plaintiffs win a pending New York test case.

DAVID Smith of Neptune Fine Art, the dealer who was duped into buying a fake Lowry painting, has told ATG that potential buyers should be exceptionally careful when considering purchasing a Lowry painting.

COSMETICS giant L’Oréal took their multi-pronged legal tussle with online auction site eBay to the High Court in London last week.

Following days of brinkmanship between the vendor and the Indian authorities, the controversial saga of the auction of Mohandas Gandhi’s personal items reached a satisfactory conclusion when they were acquired for the Indian people by a wealthy businessman.

DUTCH police have recovered eight paintings stolen from Robert Noortman’s gallery in Maastricht in 1987. The works, which included valuable works by Renoir and Pissarro, were traced to two small towns in the south of Holland after an alleged middleman in Dubai made an attempt to sell the paintings back to the insurers for a reported €5m (£4.5m).

The opening night of TEFAF Maastricht (March 13-22) was as impressive as ever: if anything the quality was better than at recent stagings, there was no sign that people were staying away, while exhibitors in the traditional sectors were quietly optimistic that business could be done.