Germany

Calls for greater transparency in the way German institutions deal with Nazi-looted art should be extended to the country’s art and antiques trade, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe has said.

The German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law (Kulturschutzgesetz) is due to be debated in the German Bundestag next spring after a “defused” draft of the law received cabinet approval on November 4.

A late 18th century bust of the Goddess Diana which was looted from the Royal Lazienki Palace in Warsaw by the Nazis has been returned to Poland after emerging at auction in Vienna.

In Germany, software billionaire Hasso Plattner has become the latest collector to demonstrate opposition to the proposed cultural property law changes.

Coin specialists AH Baldwin & Sons are encouraging their customers to sign the petition opposing an amendment to the controversial German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law.

Opposition to controversial new laws governing cultural heritage in Germany is gathering pace. Auctioneers, dealers and collectors are backing a petition ‘preserving the right to privately collect’ and calling for German the government to rethink its proposals.

Sotheby’s will hold a sale of the Bernheimer family collection in November and Konrad Bernheimer has announced the family’s Munich art dealership will move from its traditional Old Master specialism to concentrate on Modern and Contemporary art under the direction of his daughters.

Only one other major George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) manuscript has come up for auction in the last 40 years, so Stargardt in Berlin can be assured of an international audience for the extensive autograph work they will offer on March 24-25.

The April edition of the ‘Kunst & Antiquitäten’ fair will not go ahead this year.

The Kunstmuseum Bern has called the huge art bequest by Cornelius Gurlitt a “bolt from the blue, since at no time has Mr Gurlitt had any connection with” the museum.

In a series of sales to be spread over the coming years, Cologne auctioneers Lempertz are selling netsuke from the Kolodotschko collection.

The Berlin-based online art and auction house Auctionata has secured €21.5 million in new equity capital and funding following a second funding round from the existing investors.

Statute of limitations laws may prevent previous owners successfully reclaiming art acquired during the Nazi purge of the late 1930s that was hoarded in a Munich flat.

Details are slowly emerging regarding the discovery in Munich some two years ago of an extraordinary cache of art with a Nazi era provenance.

Stuttgart auctioneers Nagel achieved a new German auction record for Oriental art when they sold a Yongzheng mark and period wine pot and cover for €2.8m (£2.37m).

Scam guides have reared their head again, targeting dealers in a bid to extort large sums of money for useless advertising.

Auction Team Breker in Cologne have sold a technical rarity of the highest order – one of the six known working models of the first computer ever made by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of Apple.

The appearance of a Modernist carpet at a sale in Germany next month writes a further chapter in the tale of two rugs, signed ‘Francis Bacon’, that have been withdrawn from sale in the UK twice in three years.

A Prussian ducat from 1803 is considered one of the greatest rarities among 19th century German coins.

A 22in (57cm) long laminated wooden ‘Leaf Dish’ designed by the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915-85), estimated at €1200-1500, turned out to be the top lot of the summer Design sale held by Munich’s Quittenbaum.