Auctions

Art marketcomment

It’s time to end the predatory practices of 'sleeper hunters'

Sleeper hunter dealers must recognise they have an asymmetrical relationship to vulnerable people pressured by circumstance to sell off their treasured heirlooms

After two years of tremendous growth, France's art auction market is in decline

Overall auction results are strong—largely thanks to rise of second hand car purchases—but sales of fine art and antiques have fallen significantly from last year

Auctionsanalysis

Christie’s marathon evening sales in London make a within-estimate £163m

The 20th/21st century and Art of the Surreal auctions were up 18.5% by value on their March 2023 versions

Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary evening sale in London makes 40% less than last year

The auction house made £82m before fees and set records for Etel Adnan and Takako Yamaguchi

Cautious but calm art market awaits London’s March auctions

Expectations are measured as sector adapts to new economic landscape

California love: Dr Dre helps to kick off Frieze Week Los Angeles in style with star-studded charity auction

The hip hop legend worked with the record executive Jimmy Iovine and Sotheby’s to put on the event, which also featured performances by the producer Timbaland and the singer Andra Day

Auction of living artist's skin cancelled after collector buys all lots in advance

Christie’s was due to support the sale of Wolfgang Flatz's tattooed tissue

Art marketanalysis

Will the art market rebound? That might not be the right question

A resurgence in top-end spending would only reprise the recent status quo

Masterpieces from the Barbier-Mueller African and Oceanic Art collection to be sold at Christie's in Paris

The auction next month will include 100 pieces acquired by Josef Müller and his family

Art marketcomment

Phillips auction gives James Rosenquist estate the best of both worlds

Pop artist’s paintings have seven-figure prices, but his prints are available for just a few hundred dollars at New York sale

New York Old Master sales deliver tepid results at Christie's and Sotheby's

Scattered seven-figure highlights failed to make up for dozens of passed lots and multiple key withdrawals

Klimt portrait believed lost for a century to be auctioned in Vienna

The auction house Im Kinsky estimates the price of the 1917 painting at between €30m and €50m

Diaryblog

Uber and the Salvator Mundi prophecy

Auction mastermind Loïc Gouzer reveals why a cab driver's name was a very good omen

Art lawcomment

‘Unregulated’ auction price manipulation may still be illegal

A 'nagging sense of lawlessness' persists despite the industry's periodic rebuttals

Rediscovered panels by proto-Renaissance master Lorenzetti soar at auction

A painting depicting Pope Sylvester I made €3m, while a portrayal of Saint Helena more than doubled its high estimate, selling for €1.6m

Auctionsanalysis

Rediscovered paintings by Rembrandt and Canaletto fail to turbocharge London Old Master auctions

Evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's drew in £19.4m and £21.3m, respectively

London’s Middle Eastern art sales have defied tensions

Auction purchases by Arab cultural entities overcome early uncertainties of Israel-Hamas war

The art market in 2023: shaky year for heavily guaranteed single-owner sales

Middling performance of such auctions throughout 2023, with high costs and some sales coming in below their estimates, made a “sure thing” look less so

The 1973 Scull auction was a harbinger of today's market, but its meaning is still misunderstood

Fifty years later, history suggests the infamous sale from the collection of Robert and Ethel Scull is not quite the art market precedent it is remembered as

Long-unseen royal portrait by Diego Velázquez could bring $35m at auction

The painting could more than double the Spanish Old Master's auction record when it hits the block at Sotheby's

Caspar David Friedrich sketchbook to be sold in Berlin proposed for national heritage list

The auction house, Grisebach, says the sketchbook’s candidacy for the list will not affect plans for today’s sale

Art marketanalysis

Works by Canadian abstractionist Jean-Paul Riopelle rack up $8m at Heffel’s evening sale in Toronto

The two-part auction, coinciding with the centenary of Riopelle's birth, took in $17.2m in total

Battle of the Henry Moore heads: rare sculptures with estimates of more than £2m go on the block

Sotheby’s is selling an alabaster piece while Bonhams’ early carving is made from ironstone

What did the New York auctions reveal about the state of the art market?

Plus, experimental art from the Eastern Bloc and a sculptural installation by Terry Adkins

Sponsored byChristie's

Climate activists disrupt Christie's auction in New York

Two activists affiliiated with the group Extinction Rebellion took to the rostrum during a sale of works on paper

Phillips’s $154.6m New York double-header is both just good enough—and historically successful

The house’s two-part auction fell short of the low estimate but still became its second-best showing ever by dollar value

Brisk Sotheby's Modern evening sale in New York delivers moderate results

The auction, spanning Monet to Miró, made $190.3m—just above its low estimate—and was preceded by the record-breaking sale of a Ferrari car