France

Outside Paris auctions have also started up as lockdown eases.

Sotheby’s Paris (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) reported a cumulative total of €5.4m for the five online sales it held over two weeks in mid May through to early June. The initiative attracted new buyers, said the auction house, with 35% in the jewellery sale and 27% in the Contemporary art auction.

Around 20 years ago the owner of a mediaeval manor house in northern Europe made an exciting discovery when clearing out the moats of the fortified house.

A newly discovered bronze by a French Renaissance sculptor was acquired by the Louvre museum for €1.15m (£1.05m) at an auction in Paris on June 9.

This painting of Madame de Saint-Maurice is one of five works by Edouard Vuillard spanning the years 1900-18 from the Georges and Jacqueline Herbin collection on offer at Artcurial in Paris.

This 1890s Japoniste-style photograph frame in brown patinated bronze applied with gilt branches of stylised myosotis is by the Paris firm of Maison Millet.

Auction rooms in France are gradually opening up again, albeit within the limitations of the new health and safety regulations set as a result of the coronavirus and aided by the extra input from absentee bidding on phones and online.

Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) has held its first live sales in Paris since lockdown.

Personal items that belonged to Marie-Antoinette were the highlights of Osenat’s (20.83/18% buyer’s premium) themed sale titled Royalty at Versailles.

This late-18th century French school portrait of Michel Louis Melan, architect to Louis XVI, will be offered for sale in Osenat’s auction titled La Royauté à Versailles to be held in the town on May 24.

This unpublished carved wooden statuette from the Senufo peoples of south-east Mali, west Africa, is to be offered in a 154-lot sale of Tribal Art to be held on May 26 by Ader in its Paris, rue Favart rooms in collaboration with the Euvrard Fabre auction house.

Christie’s Paris rooms has announced a programme of 18 summer sales that it will be holding over May, June and July. These are a mixture of timed auctions and live online (huis clos) auctions.

The Paris auction centre Hôtel Drouot intends to reopen on May 25, pending “any government counter-argument”.

Aguttes’ drawings auction was one of the only sales not to be postponed after the coronavirus alert.