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Droit de Suite, the Artist’s Resale Right, finally came into force on February 14. It means that, subject to certain conditions, living artists are entitled to receive a royalty each time their art work is bought and sold via an art market professional.

The highlight of a strong £500,000 sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 14 was this Fabergé silver-gilt and cloisonné enamel box. It had been given to the vendor's husband by his grandfather who had lived and worked in St Petersburg until the time of the Revolution and had met Carl Fabergé in person.

Tiffany the jewellers are suing eBay in a case that challenges the very formula that has made the online giant such a success.

A LOOPHOLE in the export law has forced the British Museum to pay almost £100,000 more than the original auction price for the most expensive British coin ever sold. The museum believes the case highlights the need for Britain’s laws on exporting art to be reconsidered.

FROM a Hampshire cupboard find to “missing link” scientific discovery of a generation. A manuscript minute book kept by Robert Hooke during his years as Secretary to the Royal Society has rapidly and rightly been elevated to scientific sacred relic and national treasure.

Droit de Suite, the long-awaited Artist's Resale Right, comes into force today, February 14. It means that, subject to certain conditions, living artists are entitled to receive a royalty each time their art work is bought and sold via an art market professional.

New buyers help records tumble as London reinforces its importance

THE European Court of Human Justice has scrapped the UK discount on import VAT for works of art in relation to auctioneers' commissions.

Two lavish catalogues, a DVD, three days at Syon House, trips to the USA and Hong Kong, acres of press coverage… Sotheby’s and Christie’s apart, seldom can a UK auction house have devoted more time, more energy and more money to promoting a sale than Lyon & Turnbull did with the Drambuie Collection.

THE Art Loss Register has announced the recovery of four valuable paintings stolen 27 years ago in a £30m theft.

Pictures released of some of the stolen items

The London Assay Office is advising extra caution when buying antique silver following the assessment of spoons bearing forged marks submitted by four auctioneers last year.

The Victoria & Albert Museum’s sculpture collection will be redisplayed this spring in the new Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries.

Establishing a new landmark for a picture lot sold at auction outside London, two portraits by Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) took £900,000 at Dreweatt Neate’s Donnington Priory salerooms last week.

Alongside the Americana offered in the New York salerooms earlier this month, there was a strong representation of early English ceramics. Sotheby’s January 20 sale of the pottery collection of Harriet Carlton Goldweitz was followed the next day by Christie’s auction of the Mrs J. Insley Blair collection, which included some key Staffordshire productions alongside its blue chip American furnishings.

Late January/early February has become the new slot for golfiana sales with events held by Bonhams Chester (January 28) and Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh (February 7).

On a cold January 26 night in Edinburgh, a packed saleroom at Lyon & Turnbull witnessed a defining moment in the Scottish art market.

UK Government will campaign to exclude artists’ heirs permanently

For the fourth year running, prices for standard pieces of antique furniture have fallen, according the Antique Collectors’ Club’s annual index. The figures for 2005 saw the Antique Furniture Index register a record fall of seven per cent to create the best buyers’ market for more than a decade.

AGAINST a flurry of publicity on the subject, online registry of stolen valuables Swift-Find.com has launched a new initiative to help identify and reclaim Nazi looted art.