Displaying items by tag: sale

On Wednesday, Reed Galin, an investor in a painting by Andrew Wyeth entitled Ice Storm, sued an art dealer in New York State Supreme Court for the proceeds from the May sale of the painting at Christie's.

The painting is at the heart of a long-standing dispute between Galin and disgraced art dealer David Ramus, Galin's a childhood friend.

An art expert has spotted a painting valued at up to £1m, which was once sold to help fund Nelson Mandela’s legal defense, being used as a noticeboard in a London flat.

The painting, Arab in Black, a 1939 work by Irma Stern – regarded as South Africa’s leading artist, whose works have recently been soaring in value – was recognised by Hannah O’Leary, a specialist in South African art at Bonhams auction house, during a valuation visit to the flat.

Legendary modernist architect Marcel Breuer designed one of his most striking residential properties, the Stillman House, in idyllic Litchfield, Connecticut. Constructed between 1950 and 1953, the estate was the first of four that Breuer devised for Rufus and Leslie Stillman, who sold it to the current owners in 2009. The 2.8-acre property, which has since been meticulously restored with the aid of archival photographs, will be offered in Wright’s “Design Masterworks” auction on November 19.

Sotheby’s has set a new auction record for a work on paper by Frederic, Lord Leighton during its July 15 Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art sale in London, selling a study for the artist’s “Flaming June” to an American collector for £167,000 against an estimate of £40,000-60,000.

The pencil and white chalk study is the only head study for the artist’s famous “Flaming June” masterpiece. It was rediscovered hanging discreetly on a bedroom wall at West Horsley Place, a 400-acre Surrey estate, by Sotheby’s Victorian Art specialist Simon Toll.

When Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Gertrud Loew-Felsövanyi (1902) sold at Sotheby's London in June for $39 million, many speculated about the buyer's identity.

Now, an investigation conducted by the Austrian daily Der Standard has revealed that the painting was not bought by Ronald Lauder as was previously assumed. The buyer is Joe Lewis, a British billionaire who's made his fortune in foreign exchange market (forex) trading in the early 1990s.

The legal owner of Henry Moore's sculpture Draped Seated Woman (1957-58) is Tower Hamlets Council, the High Court in London ruled on July 8, ending a long-running legal battle with Bromley Council over the work.
 
The former mayor of the east London borough, Lutfur Rahman consigned the work to auction in February 2013. But the sale was postponed after the Art Fund charity and the Museum of London discovered evidence that suggested ownership of the sculpture lay with Bromley Council in south London.

This story is the stuff of film. An Auguste Rodin statue that was stolen from a Beverly Hills mansion 24 years ago was finally recovered after it popped up at a Christie's auction. The work, which was estimated to sell for around $100,000, had been consigned and was subsequently withdrawn.

Now, following a settlement brokered with the help of London-based Art Recovery Group led by CEO Christopher Marinello, the statue, Young Girl With a Serpent (circa 1886), will be consigned for sale this year, with no claims to hinder it.

Christie's kept the international art auction caravan rolling with an impressionist and modern art sale that brought in $113 million (£71.88 million) on Tuesday.

A Claude Monet study of mauve irises swaying against a pale blue sky in his Giverny garden was the star lot at $17 million. A 1969 Pablo Picasso head, with all the startling vigour of his old age, came in next at $7 million.

The UK is fighting to keep a Paul Cézanne landscape painting in the country following its sale for £13.5 million ($20.5 million) at Christie's London during its $222.8 million Impressionist and modern art sale in February.

At the auction, "Vue sur L'Estaque et Le Château d'If" (1883–85) barely topped its pre-sale estimate of £8–12 million ($13–19 million), and was sold to Nancy Whyte, an American art advisor.

More than 200 lots of diamonds, rare gemstones, and signed designer jewels brought $27.6 million at Christie’s New York sale of Important Jewels on June 16.

The top lot, a cushion-cut Kashmir sapphire of 21.71 carats, realized $4.2 million. Signed by Cartier, flanked on both sides by trapeze-shaped diamonds, and mounted in platinum, the ring was part of the collection of Margaret Adderley Kelly, which saw a 100% sell-through totaling just shy of $10 million.