Two Sienese panels dating from the 15th century have been recovered in an English parish church, in a village in Yorkshire, just outside the town of Sheffield. More precisely this extraordinary discovery occurred in St. John e S. Mary Magdalene’s Church in the small town of Goldthorpe. 
A sensational retrieval, considering that the two paintings had been “abandoned” for years in the Lady Chapel, an architectonic area of the church where it was very difficult to see them in their splendour.  Nobody ever thought that these works could have an important value. There were no suspects of them being an ancient work and especially no desire to study them or record them.  But at last even these paintings, after many centuries, have been noticed and analysed. Indeed, as soon as the first suspect emerged, Christie’s auction house was called in for a consultancy and in turn sought advice from Everett Fahy of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

A precious painting by Pablo Picasso was the announced star of Sotheby’s upcoming auction to be held on 3rd November in New York. In just a few days Sotheby’s will put up for auction all high-level proposals, in the session dedicated to impressionist and modern art, which includes in its élitist range of choices various pieces by Degas, Munch, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet, Kandinskij and Picasso.
Yesterday, a sudden and unexpected change of course was announced, then published on the New York Times, regarding the piece that was considered one of the highlights of the event: Picasso’s “Arlequin” from 1909 has been withdrawn from the auction; this painting was estimated at more than 30 million dollars, equivalent to about 24 million euros.

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is considered one of the leading exponents of  Decadentism straddling the nineteenth and twentieth century. Nowadays he can be viewed as the prophet of a new era of anxiety which pervades every aspect of our daily lives. To the figures of the objective reality, Munch opposes images of his tormented inner self, replacing the concrete aspects of the world with ghosts that haunt his intimacy.

  Recently the economic crisis has been widely felt, burdening on world markets a little everywhere and sometimes also affecting the art market, but predictions for the up-coming auction of modern and contemporary art in Dubai seem to show that the Arab countries are not at all worried about the crisis. Christie’s is about to open the fifth edition of its auction in Dubai, which will be held on 30th October at the Hotel Jumeirah Emirates Tower with 157 lots, produced by artists from the Arab Emirates and other places. There are great hopes for the event, which is expected to realise at least between 12 and 18 million dollars.

Auction house Bonhams is getting increasingly closer to contemporary art and in particular, it is focusing its attention on Street Art. In a period when all the auction houses have a department dedicated to contemporary art, even this year Bonhams is going to try and buy up the market with the sale of 122 lots that will be auctioned on 23rd October at its New Bond Street venue in London. Works of contemporary art executed by a new wave of emerging artists, who most times offer fresh, sharp, politically engaging and stimulating pieces.

CHRISTIE’S AND SOTHEBY’S OVERCOME THE WINDS OF CRISIS WITH “MADE IN ITALY” ART 
If the London auctions dedicated to contemporary art alarmed the art market due to the downturns of Sotheby’s, Phillips de Pury and Christie’s, which altogether had an average of unsold works equal to 50%, at last the economy of sales seems to have heaved a small sigh of relief with the Italian Sales.