News

The Hôtel Drouot, the communal saleroom facility used by most Paris auctioneers, has welcomed the news that swathes of former staff members are to face charges relating to stolen property.

Two rare brooches by Wiener Werkstätte founder Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) caused a sensation when they appeared in the recent Jugendstil and Design auction held at Kinsky in Vienna.

This striking 2ft 1½in (64.4cm) high Luba figural bowstand made c.1880 by the Warua Master was the runaway star of London’s high season sales.

A stolen Auguste Rodin sculpture, recovered after it was consigned to Christie’s in 2011, will go to auction later this year.

Mayfair art agent Timothy Sammons is facing a string of legal claims over soured multi-million-pound deals in the United Kingdom and the United States involving paintings by Van Gogh, Canaletto, Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani and Magritte.

Berlin online auction house Auctionata set a house record when this Chinese enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock was sold for €2.8m (£2.15m), or €3.37m including premium.

A rare painting by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828) that had hung in the Prime Minister’s residence at 10, Downing Street for nine years led Christie’s evening sale of Old Master & British paintings in London.