Auction houses

Art marketcomment

The all-powerful market is sounding the death knell for connoisseurship

Today, art history is increasingly being written by dealers and auctioneers to suit their own purpose

Plucky Brits: Banksy self-destructs and Jenny Saville makes £9.5m record for a living female artist

Just when we thought Frieze week was all over, twists and turns provide high drama at Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale on Friday night

British artists dominate Christie's patchy £71.1m sale, as over-priced Koons and Richter fail to sell

Francis Bacon's lighter depiction of George Dyer leads auction at £17.5m, with strong prices for Hurvin Anderson, Bridget Riley and Albert Oehlen

Young pop-up The Auction Collective claims bidding on art is as easy as buying a book on Amazon

No buyer's premium and bidding paddles on your phone, but founder still believes holding physical auctions is key

Red tape is stifling German auctions

Stringent cultural heritage laws and bureaucracy are making consignments much harder to find

Sotheby’s earnings take a hit as demanding consignors and guarantors squeeze its commission margin

Just two paintings significantly damaged the auction house's bottom line in the second quarter

Booksreview

Very much an acquired taste: how did so many Italian baroque paintings end up in US museums?

Book provides a sampling of personalities, acquisition strategies and collections that many Europeans may not know

Christie’s reports record half year sales of £2.97bn

Rockefeller auction plus leap in private and online sales drive 26% increase

Monet’s lost cat returns home to Giverny

A “purr-fect” ending to the story of the missing pottery object found in the collection of the artist’s secret granddaughter

Art marketanalysis

More than just a pretty face: furrowed brows win at Christie's patchy Old Master sale, but £6.7m sculpture tops paintings

Tacca's Hercules is star of the bronzes, while Carracci's military portrait and Rembrandt's print find favour where Rubens's daughter flounders in £31.1m sale

Art marketanalysis

Guarantees, the Beckham effect and warts-and-all portraits: Sotheby's pulls off a consistent Old Master sale

No big hitters, but overall quality and new buyers from Asia and Latin America buoyed £42.6m auction, with £5.3m record for Canova set in day sale

Otto Naumann comes out of 'retirement' to join Sotheby's

Veteran Old Master dealer will join the auction house in New York at the end of the summer, months after selling his inventory there

Glut of sculpture in London auctions, despite Giambologna withdrawal

Bronze and marble take centre stage during Old Masters sales week, although Dresden Mars returns home without going on the block at Sotheby's

London’s contemporary art summer season in flux as middle market comes out on top

Christie’s introduces day sale format and established names give way to new talent

Lucian Freud’s late reclining nude makes London record at £22.5m

Artist was 80 years old when he began the painting of a former Tate cataloguer

How did Adrian Ghenie conquer the art market?

The Romanian painter’s prices have increased 160-fold over the past decade. But who, or what, is behind this steep rise?

Supply wrung out? End of term feel to London Impressionist and Modern art auctions

Sotheby's sale fell below estimate while Christie’s provided some cheer, showing there is still money in Monet – but only the right one

Georgina Adam. with additional reporting by Anna Brady

Rapper pays $18.5m for work at auction but the artist gets nothing—is the system in need of reform?

Anny Shaw asks if auction houses and dealers should pay their dues to the artists from whom they profit

Lawnews

German museum and auctioneer Im Kinsky tussle over looted glass goblet

Object was returned to consigner not museum from where it was looted at the end of Second World War

Dinosaur skeleton previously unknown to science auctioned in the Eiffel Tower

Aguttes sold the fossil to an anonymous buyer, who may name the new species, despite protests from paleontologists

Are Sergei Skripal sanctions hitting Russian buying and selling at UK auctions?

Hostile relations between Russia and the West following attempted poisoning of former MI6 spy may dampen bidding at London's Russian sales

Beckmann painting auctioned for record €4.7m in Berlin

Villa Grisebach says price is the highest paid for any work in a German auction

Christie’s reintroduces contemporary art to its London summer calendar

Still no evening auction, but blue-chip artists make way for fresh talent in new day sale format

Women speak out about the gender pay gap at UK auction houses

Blaming an ingrained culture, auction houses vow to correct imbalance in women’s pay and representation in the highest ranks

Is Bonhams for sale?

Advisory group NM Rothschild has reportedly been brought in to oversee a possible sale of the British auction house

Object lessons: our picks from this week's evening auctions in New York

Highlights include works by Cady Noland, Kerry James Marshall and Lyonel Feininger

Online sales, Asia and guarantees: auction house chiefs on the future of the business

The heads of Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips speak on market shifts, challenges and why they believe their model will succeed