Origines sale makes €3m but not without controversy

Sotheby's 600 lot sale of the stock of Samuel Roger's Origines on 31 March and 1 April totalled a creditable €3m but not without controversy over three of the lots which attracted some sniping by the French press who are still smarting over the disarray of their own auction houses (some of which were arrested in a scandal last year) and the takeover by Sotheby's and Christie's. Le Journal Des Arts, Le Monde and Liberation all carried stories about the sale, saying that one figure of a bather by Buxan was withdrawn after the sculptor's relatives denounced it as fake, the top lot of an Austrian chimneypiece estimated at €400,000 (allegedly bought for €10,000) was withdrawn after an Austrian newspaper said it was made for Vienna City Hall and should not have been exported, and a statue by Emilio Zocchi of the young Michelangelo was apparently said by some to be a Chinese copy.

Liberation: Smoke screen at Sotheby's

Journal des Arts: The sale 'Architecture & Heritage gives trouble to Sotheby's France

Le Monde: Sotheby's sells items from monumental castles or abbeys