Europe

The Rolex Deep Sea Special, with its remarkable bubble case capable of withstanding huge pressure, was created in the early 1950s to test just how deep a diving watch could go.

If ever there were a price to demonstrate just how important condition has become in the top end of the collecting market then it is the record-breaking SFr2.55m (£2.065m) for a reference CK2915 Speedmaster at Phillips (26/21% buyer's premium) in Geneva on November 5.

The World Chess Championship currently taking place in Dubai began on November 26 in familiar style.

The German painter Rudolf Levy was born in north Germany, but was at home in many parts of Europe.

The opening 27 lots at Nagel’s sale of Asian works of art on December 7 in Stuttgart come from the collection of an aristocratic German family and have been in their possession since before 1904, when they were purchased in China.

There can be no doubt that the 16th century painter of 'Limbus – Christ’s Descent into the Underworld' was inspired by the works of Hieronymus Bosch.

Although he was born and died in Moscow, the decisive phase of Wladimir von Bechtejeff’s artistic development can be dated to his time in Germany.

For many decades, the name Arnold Topp meant little to art collectors.

One of Sandro Botticelli’s most iconic paintings was his 'Madonna del Magnificat', painted in the 1481. The title is taken from the opening words of the Virgin’s song of exaltation, 'Magnificat anima mea dominum' (My soul doth glorify the Lord), which she is writing in the book before her.

An exceptional, expanded and specially cased example of Ippolito Rosellini’s 'I Monumenti dell Egitto e della Nubia' of 1832-34 topped the bidding in a Fonsie Mealy (20% buyer’s premium) sale of the library from Howth Castle.

Star of the show at Dorotheum (28/25% buyer’s premium) in Vienna on November 9 was a large-format Venetian scene, painted by Luigi Querena in 1865.

The descendants of the Belgian collector Jef Vanderstraete have consigned this 20in (51cm) high gilt bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara Ekadashamukha to Lempertz in Cologne, where it is coming up for sale on December 11.

Russian interest drives €125,000 result in Germany.

A late 18th century clock at auction in Germany has links to a French architect.

A world away from the flat-pack furniture so familiar today, a Mid-century armchair has sold for what is believed to be a record price for IKEA.

On December 2, as part of its So Unique series launched in April, Millon holding a single-lot sale in Paris of a painting by the Italian artist Domenico Gnoli (1933-70) which has been in a private collection for over 45 years.

A group of sleek Deco furnishings designed in the 1930s by Eugène Printz (1879-1948) for a villa in Casablanca went under the hammer at Briscadieu (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Bordeaux.

A collection of silver assembled over half a century by a Brussels general practitioner with a passion for 18th century French silver is to be offered for sale by Dupont & Associés, Morlaix Enchères, at Drouot in Paris on December 6.