Sotheby's

The Contemporary art market survived better than many had expected at the London auction series last week.

In a week of varying results, the Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's London took £228.8m with premium in total (compared with £381.4m for the equivalent series last year).

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on a pair of 17th century Italian ebony, ormolu and hardstone inlaid cabinets in the hope that they can be saved for the nation.

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s saw sales fall in 2015, a sign that the art market may be slowing.

Sotheby’s recent sale of royal and aristocratic heirlooms, titled Of Royal and Noble Descent, included this maiolica istoriato charger.

Sotheby’s are following Christie’s by staging their flagship New York May auctions of Impressionist & Modern art and Contemporary art in a single week.

The centrepiece of Sotheby’s April auction series in Hong Kong will be the collection of around 100 lots of Chinese porcelain spanning the Tang to Qing dynasties that was formed by the British collector Roger Pilkington.

The competition between auction houses to expand their private sales operations took a new twist with the announcement last week that Sotheby’s had bought art advisory firm Art Agency, Partners (AAP).

Sotheby’s have announced that Mario Tavella, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and European head of single-owner collections, will become président directeur général of Sotheby’s France.

The market for traditional antiques ended 2015 on a high with a series of spectacular individual prices posted in London and New York in mid-December.

Among the works drawing interest at the latest round of Old Master and British Paintings sales in London was Joseph Wright of Derby’s (1734-97) ‘A grotto in the gulf of Salerno...’.

Sotheby’s will rekindle their connections with former director John Winter this month thanks to a 186-lot single-owner sale in New Bond Street.

Sotheby’s have begun a voluntary redundancy scheme as they look to cut costs as part of their restructuring plan.

Christie’s have announced major changes to their antiquities sales calendar in London and New York.

The hefty guarantee paid out by Sotheby’s to secure the Alfred Taubman collection meant the stakes were running high for the first and most financially crucial tranche of the four-part auction staged at Sotheby’s New York.

A Rembrandt portrait sold in a £35m private sale negotiated by Sotheby’s will be staying in the UK after the overseas buyer withdrew their application to export the painting.

London’s growing importance as a hub for Modern design – boosted with the imminent return of sales at Sotheby’s – was underlined this month with records at Phillips in Mayfair.

Three years after Christie’s sold an earlier version for £20m, a second version of John Constable’s (1776-1837) The Lock is being offered at Sotheby’s Old Master & British Paintings Sale on December 9.

The sports writers will have turned their attention to the rugby world cup by the time you read this, but at ATG we are focusing on differently shaped balls.

Sotheby’s will open an office in Mumbai, as they bid to expand their Indian businesses with two ‘strategic’ appointments in the region.