News and updates from around the arts and auction community:

• A clever con artist hatched a plot to fuel her luxury handbag obsession — swindling more than $1 million by buying designer purses from department stores, then returning knockoffs. A judge sentenced Praepitcha Smatsorabudh, 41, of Arlington County, Va., to 30 months in prison last week.  [Read more from The Washington Post]

• Sotheby’s and Christie’s held their annual November sales just one week after the biggest upset in U.S. history – and according to market analysts, both did extraordinarily well. With astonishing sums of money being bid, one might assume that art buyers are making levelheaded decisions, but this is not often the case.  [Read more from New York Magazine]

• Less than three years after it opened – and a year and a half since its founder died – the Bob McDorman Automotive Museum near Columbus, Ohio, announced it will close and liquidate its Chevrolets and neon signs. The collection of the 50-year Chevy dealer will go to auction at Mecum’s Indianapolis event in May.  [Read more from Hemmings Daily]

• Dec. 29, 2016 marks the centenary of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which was first published in 1916. In Joyce’s home country of Ireland, this week marks the end of a year of events celebrating the centenary.  [Read more from CTV News]

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