Art market

Art marketcomment

Art authentication is not an exact science

The process of art attribution has come under attack, with forgery scandals rampant

Art marketcomment

Why the Christie's and Sotheby's duopoly is impregnable

The auction houses sell more than 80% of works priced over $1m at auction—can an underdog ever wrestle market share away from them?

Christie’s head of post-war art in Europe Francis Outred leaves after ten years

Auction house is yet to announce a successor, while Outred says he is taking time out to consider offers

Auction house pulls seven objects from American Indian sale amid protests

Native American official calls planned auction of the items “unconscionable”

Sotheby’s Germany chief Philipp von Württemberg resigns

Heinrich von Spreti will serve as interim managing director until a replacement is found

Exhibitors see steady sales at the second edition of Puerto Rico's MECA art fair

The young art fair re-opened in a new San Juan venue after Hurricane Maria damage

Art marketanalysis

Downright quirky appetite for American masters at Sotheby's

A monumental painting of the American West by Emanuel Leutze breaks records while works by Rockwell and Hopper flop

London dealer Matthew Green accused of selling art used to secure more than £2m in loans

His business Mayfair Fine Art went into administration earlier this year following FBI sting operation

Art marketinterview

Notorious forger Wolfgang Beltracchi on ethics, the art market and how to make a great fake

Now painting under his own name, Beltracchi's works are part of a selling exhibition currently touring Europe

Phillips and Bonhams see strong sales on smaller lots

The auction houses' bottom lines suffered from unsold lots, continuing a trend of top-lot discernment during New York’s fall sales

Hockney sets new auction record for a living artist, but were strings pulled behind the no-reserve sale?

The Yorkshireman's 1970s Californian scene, Portrait of an Artist, sold on the nose at $80m at Christie's in New York last night

Art marketpreview

Latin American art gets a boost on the auction block

Broadening the sales strategy for Latin American art has been a positive move for some artists' markets

Nobel Prize-winning doctor’s painting of the lab where he discovered insulin goes on sale in Toronto

Dr Frederick Banting wanted to take up art full-time, but he was killed in a plane crash during the Second World War

African American artists sweep Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale in New York

With only two lots unsold, the auction house nets $362.6m in evening of avid bidding

Art marketpreview

How high will Hockney go and can his soaring market last?

A double pool portrait, estimated at $80m and offered at Christie’s with no reserve, could set a record for the most expensive work by a living artist

Record $91.9m sale of Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey buoys confidence at Christie’s American art sale

At $317.8m, the Ebsworth evening sale becomes one of the top five most valuable collections ever sold at auction

Art marketcomment

Will the UK be able to take part in antiquities busts after Brexit?

Nineteen of the accused in Operation Demetra face trial in December, while the alleged UK mastermind awaits extradition

Top lots go unsold at New York's Impressionist and Modern sales, proving a discerning but 'not doomsday' market

Monet carries Christie's evening sale while a Magritte shines at Sotheby's, marking an auction record for the Surrealist painter

Art marketanalysis

Performance art finds its voice at Independent Brussels

Contemporary fair has reinvented itself after scaling back and moving to a November slot, although it has lost some big name exhibitors

Art marketanalysis

Tiny, but rich: Luxembourg pushes for more presence in art market

It may be known as a haven, but buyers in the grand duchy pay 17% tax, fair director says

Mayfair Fine Art administrators struggle to trace paintings linked to money-laundering scandal

Two works supposedly owned by bankrupt company, whose director Matthew Green resigned in February following FBI sting operation, are "apparently" in Dubai

Guarantees: the next big art market scandal?

Third-party auction deals have made some people very rich—but they may be bad for the market in the long run

Anna Brady. , with additional reporting by Anny Shaw
Art marketcomment

Common mistakes of rookie auction guarantors

Guarantees can be lucrative, but in the face of savvy competition, novices can get burnt when backing works as a third-party

Holy grail of folk ceramics made by 19th-century snake handler breaks auction record

The “snake jug” shattered the previous record for Anna Pottery, a niche favourite of Americana collectors

Art marketpreview

What to watch on the block during New York's fall sales

Lesser known lots still hold plenty of hammer potential

Picture this: from €10,000 to €1.3m, what to buy at Paris Photo

Prices for photography tend to be lower than standard art market price ranges but Richard Avedon’s famous Warhol image has a seven-figure price tag

Russian billionaire Dmitri Rybolovlev charged in corruption probe brought by Monaco police

The formal investigation follows his detainment earlier this week related to an ongoing spat with the art dealer Yves Bouvier