Sotheby's

Sold at Sotheby’s for £900,000 last month was a rare copy of a work that marks the beginning of printing in English.

Sotheby’s figures for the first half of 2014 saw a significant increase in auction totals help them to a 20% rise in operating income compared to the equivalent period last year.

Twelve years after their first online collaboration, Sotheby’s and eBay have formed a second partnership to stream Sotheby’s sales worldwide.

For some years now, Far Eastern buyers have been demonstrating their fascination with so-called ‘sing-songs’ – the elaborate 18th century automaton table clocks made for the Chinese market by paying ever-increasing sums to secure them.

Christie’s reported auction sales for the first half of 2014 of $3.6bn (£2.2bn), a 23% rise on the same period last year. Sotheby’s took $3.12bn (£1.9bn), a 22% increase.

While two of the top prices of the London auctions last week came for ancient sculptures – the £14m Old Kingdom Egyptian limestone statue at Christie’s and the £8.3m for the Roman marble of Aphrodite (c.41-54AD) at Sotheby’s – there was also a bumper run of Old Master and British picture sales.

Sotheby’s have secured the single-owner collection of Rachel Lambert Mellon, valued at more than $100m, for sale later this year in New York.

The total from last week’s Contemporary art auctions in London may have been a far cry from the record New York series in May where $1.57bn (£975m) of art changed hands, but there was still plenty of action as the market continued on its current buoyant course.

One of Claude Monet’s paintings from his celebrated Water Lilies series led a slightly mixed round of Impressionist & Modern art auctions in London last week.

Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.

A draft of Bob Dylan’s seminal recording Like A Rolling Stone set a new auction record for a pop song manuscript when it sold for $1.7m (£1.04m) to an unnamed collector at Sotheby’s New York on June 24.

Sotheby’s set a new auction record for a stamp with the $7.9m (£4.85m) hammer taken for the 1856 British Guiana one-cent Magenta in New York last week.

A painting of a well-known location in Manchester by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) led the latest sale of Modern & Post-War British Art at Sotheby’s.

Despite the unhelpful backdrop of Ukraine politics and the threat of economic sanctions, the Russian art market continued on its mercurial journey in the first week of June. The characteristic patchy selling rates for the ‘Londongrad’ sales were accompanied by moments of remarkable competition.

There was no slowing down in the Contemporary art market as the latest sales in New York posted a record for any auction series.

The protagonists in the battle over the future of Sotheby’s have called a truce, with both sides conceding points.

A reported increase in Asian buying was the most notable feature of a somewhat underwhelming series of Impressionist & Modern art auctions in New York last week.

A near complete working draft written by Bob Dylan for arguably his most famous song, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, will be offered at Sotheby’s in New York this summer.

A massive cache of British Arts and Crafts metalware and ceramics stored in a bank for over 25 years will be sold by Bonhams through their forthcoming decorative arts auctions.

Sotheby’s are preparing for a crunch vote at the May 6 annual shareholder meeting when they hope to see off a bid by investor Daniel Loeb to join the board.