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Key former members of Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions have started a new auction firm.

A porcelain vase thought to be from a Chinese Imperial palace over two centuries ago sells at Bonhams for £110,500

Christie’s are to sell another major slice of deaccessioned material from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, just under a year after they held a dedicated auction devoted to a dispersal from the Met’s holdings of English furniture and works of art.

Just under $1.2bn changed hands at the top-end of the art market in New York this week as Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips all held their Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary auctions over seven days for the first time. Here is ATG’s pick of individual highlights sold across the week.

Renowned classic car auctioneer Max Girardo has left RM Sotheby’s to set up his own London-based brokerage, Girardo & Co, which will deal “in only the highest quality cars available to the market”.

Tickets are now available for the third Art Business Conference which will take place at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster, London on September 1.

Joseph Chait, a 38-year-old senior auction administrator with IM Chait gallery and auction house in Beverly Hills, has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to smuggle items of rhino horn, ivory, coral and a hornbill casque.

A top European contemporary art gallery is set to take over the Mayfair premises of troubled dealership Mallett.

The American art-secured lending market is growing significantly, with an estimated loan book size of between $15bn-19bn.

As West Ham and Manchester United prepare to play the final match at Upton Park tonight, the East London club have announced that fans will have the chance to buy their own slice of Hammers’ history with an extensive auction of memorabilia, including fixtures and fittings from the stadium itself.

Oxford’s Bodleian Library has acquired a map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien (1892-1973).

Made under the watchful eye of the third Qing emperor, a Chinese porcelain vase valued at just £12 in the 1950s sold for £750,000 at the latest sale held by Mallams in Cheltenham.

Bonhams set a record auction price for any British motorcycle with the sale of a 1938 Brough Superior 750cc BS4 for £331,900.

The Union Customs Code (UCC), designed to standardise how customs information is processed, became law on May 1.

Christie’s have announced details of their latest ‘themed’ sale – an evening sale of British art which will take place in London on June 30.

Interesting oddities that were ironed out in subsequent editions bump up demand when it comes to book collecting. A good example of this is coming up at Wolverhampton auction house Cuttlestones on May 6.

Fears are growing that independent London art dealers will be priced out of new premises being built in Cork Street as property developers have started targeting high-end international galleries.

A large Indian gouache on paper miniature was the unexpected highlight of a specialist Islamic & Indian Arts sale at Roseberys in London last week.

A selection of works by David Tindle (b.1932) will be offered at Grand Auctions in Folkestone on May 9.

A portrait by Eugène Delacroix redolent with associations to Nineteenth century French Romanticism has been secured by the Paris museum dedicated to his work.