SALE STYMIED: British authorities have stalled the sale of J.M.W. Turner's 1839 painting "Modern Rome — Campo Vaccino" to the J. Paul Getty Trust. At a Sotheby's auction in London last July, California's Getty placed the high bid of $44.9 million for the work. Yet on Wednesday, Great Britain's culture minister, Ed Vaizy, declared that the required export license for the painting will be held up through Feb. 2, and possibly until Aug. 1, in order for alternative buyers to come up with funds to keep the British masterpiece in Britain, reports the Los Angeles Times.

DEALER INVESTIGATED: Art dealer Guy Wildenstein, formerly a partner in the PaceWildenstein Gallery alliance that dissolved amicably last April, is under investigation in France for corruption. Sylvia Roth, the widow of Guy's father Daniel Wildenstein, who died in 2001, filed a complaint with police against her stepson. Roth accuses Guy Wildenstein of concealing much of his father’s estimated multi-billion dollar fortune, including a cache of masterpiece paintings held in offshore trusts, from both the tax office and other heirs, according to Artforum.

PHOTOS MONETIZED: On Monday, Image Fortress and Masterpiece Marketing Group launched Advanced Image Archiving ™(AIA), a new digital image archiving and monetization service that it says will help museums, libraries, newspapers, magazines, universities, and other large photo collection owners to digitize, preserve, and sell their photo archives. Read more in ARTFIXdaily's ArtWire.

CHICAGO WEEKEND: The partnership of Wes Cowan, Garth Clark, and Mark Del Vecchio (Cowans+Clark+DelVecchio) will present their inaugural Modern and Contemporary Ceramics Auction alongside the 2010 SOFA (Sculpture Objects & Functional Art) Fair and the Intuit Show of Folk & Outsider Art in Chicago on Saturday, November 6, 2010, at the Navy Pier. The first of its kind, the Auction brings to the international art market over 80 works by the most important 20th-century ceramic artists in the field.