Christie's

Christie’s sale of works of art of Art from the Fujita Museum of Art met with a glowing reception in New York on March 15.

The latest series of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary art auctions in London showed a dramatic improvement on the equivalent sales last year and the overall premium-inclusive total represented a record in terms of sterling.

The news of the impending closure of Christie’s South Kensington may not have come as a great surprise but, without doubt, its demise seems like an ‘end of an era’ moment.

As the market changes, salerooms come and go. Few have come and are soon to go like Christie’s South Kensington. But the forces behind the impending demise of the once-trailblazing auction house have been in the works for some time.

Christie’s is proposing to close its auctions in South Kensington.

Christie’s is looking to repeat its success by making a bumper price for a piece of medieval tomb sculpture in London this summer.

Works collected by the late Lord Weidenfeld, founder of the publishing firm that first brought out ‘Lolita’ in English, go under the hammer at Christie’s in May. The single-owner sale includes drawings of the female form by Egon Schiele and Alberto Giacometti.

Christie’s posted total sales of £4bn in 2016, a decrease of 16% compared to the previous year and well down from the art market’s high watermark of £5.1bn in 2014.

Christie’s has promoted Dirk Boll to president of its Europe, Middle East, Russia and India division, reporting directly into chief executive Guillaume Cerutti.

Christie’s have appointed Furio Rinaldi as associate specialist in the Old Master Drawings department in New York.

Christie’s specialist Jonathan Laib has left the auction house to take up a role as director at contemporary art dealers David Zwirner this month.

Here are five of ATG's ‘best of the best’ picks of the week from 2016 – all remarkable both for their price and the stories they tell.

A temporary export bar has been placed on a rare Wedgwood vase in the hope £482,500 can be raised to keep it in the UK.

Christie’s Guillaume Cerutti has been promoted to become the auctioneer’s chief executive, replacing Patricia Barbizet who will become vice chairman.