Europe

While many Paris galleries take part in fairs or parcours, there is no shortage of dealers who launch individual exhibitions in their galleries at the rentrée.

Specialist dealer in Oceanic art Anthony Meyer, whose gallery is in the rue des Beaux Arts on the Left Bank, is one of the Paris dealers who is doubly busy this September.

The gallery-lined medieval streets of the St-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris will be thronged with a babel of different accents and cultures during the second week of September.

Dealer events have traditionally dominated the early September calendar in Paris but auction houses are catching up.

The September return to work (and school) after a long summer break is significant enough in France to have its own title: La rentrée.

Fair aims to capitalise on the event’s past heritage and more recent major innovations.

Other exhibitions launching this September include 'Forces et Mouvements' at Galerie François Léage, a fifth-generation dealership on the well-known rue du faubourg Saint-Honoré.

There is a decidedly French flavour to the loan exhibition at this year’s Biennale. Prominently displayed under the central dome of the Grand Palais will be a selection of works from the extensive Napoleonic collection of Pierre-Jean Chalençon.

As well as the themed shows, some of which are detailed on these two pages, this year’s Parcours has a loan exhibition that goes to the roots of the French tribal art collecting.

One of Ireland’s leading provincial auction houses, Mealy’s Fine Art of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, has ceased trading after 84 years.

On the day that the Bastille was stormed Louis XVI famously recorded “rien” (nothing) in his game book.

It has not been a vintage season for armour in the saleroom, but some of the recent highlights from London and Munich are shown here.

It took a bid of €60,000 (£53,100) to secure a pair of flintlock pistols of c.1730 from the armoury of the Princes of Lobkowitz at Hermann Historica (25% buyer’s premium) in Munich in May.

Imperial souvenirs, Expressionist portraits and metalware from Augsburg and Iran were among the recent highlights at sales in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

France remains one of the most popular holiday destinations for UK residents. If you want to combine an antiques/vintage buying trip with a holiday in either Provence or the Haute-Savoie this month, then a visit to two of the regions’ most attractive towns might feature high on the itinerary.

The owner of a rediscovered painting attributed to Giotto has lost a High Court battle over its export from the EU.

Among the thousands of lots in Hermann Historica’s (25% buyer’s premium) May sales series in Munich, one of the highlights was this gold inlaid karud from Turkestan which sold at €29,000 (£25,665).