Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, painted London: New Horse Guards from St James’s Park. The work, oil on panel measuring 58.5 by 110 cm, was estimated at €2,000,000–€3,000,000 (about $2.45–$3.7 million) and was set to be sold by Dorotheum in Vienna on October 17, 2012. The painting documents 18th century London during Canaletto's English stay (1746–1755) and is tied to other works depicting the Old Horse Guards and related drawings in major collections.
Manet, Édouard Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, 1868; the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford acquired the painting following an 8 month campaign, raising £7.83 million with donations from hundreds of members of the public.
The Ashmolean Museum raised £7.83 million to acquire Edouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus and keep it in the United Kingdom. The painting had a temporary export bar and was eventually made available to a British public institution for 27% of its market value.
Charles Saatchi offered to donate a collection valued at upwards of £30 million (S$60 million) to the nation, but two years later the bequest has not found a home. The collection includes works by Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Jitish Kallat, and Emin, among others, and features pieces such as My Bed, Tragic Anatomies, 20:50, Chinese Offspring by Zhang Dali, and Ghost by Kader Attia.
Picasso ceramics from the Madoura Collection sold at Christie’s London for over £8 million ($12.5 million), four times their presale estimate, with the sale totaling for the two-day event. Alain Ramié, son of the founders of the Vallauris pottery, consigned the pieces kept by the Madoura facility; the works numbered more than 500 and spanned Picasso’s Madoura years.