Italy

An art dealer is among those under investigation over a collection of Amadeo Modigliani paintings which have been denounced as fakes.

A record for a Casablanca movie poster was made last week when an Italian example sold for a premium-inclusive $478,000 (£361,800).

Treasures from the Galleria Borghese in Rome will feature in a loan exhibition at this year’s TEFAF Maastricht.

Two unusual works by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto (1697-1786), will be on display in a Mayfair Gallery this week prior to their sale at auction later in the month in Genoa, Italy.

Forum Auctions has formalised its deal with book dealer Filippo Rotundo’s Phiobiblon Gallery and will hold Forum branded auctions in Italy later this month.

Two large Old Master paintings worth up to €180,000 (£123,530) have been returned to Italy 22 years after they were stolen.

Stakeholders in the Italian art market will meet lawmakers this week in the hope of overturning legislation they say has hampered the country’s art market for a century.

Florence’s longstanding Antiques Fair, the ‘Biennale Internationale dell’ Antiquariato di Firenze’, opens next week in the city’s 17th century Palazzo Corsini, running from September 26 to October 4.

Dreweatts & Bloomsbury auctions have joined forces with Philobiblon, a leading Italian antiquarian books and manuscripts specialist, to offer monthly valuation events, auctions and fine art exhibitions in Rome.

The franchise agreement under which Bloomsbury Auctions Italia has operated in Rome since September 2011 has ceased.

SPIRALLING debts and a lack of prospects have forced the closure of Finarte Casa d’Aste S.p.A., formerly a major player in the Italian auctions scene.