Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

Nearly 35 years ago, a Chinese jade artwork from the 18th century was stolen from a display case at Harvard University’s Fogg Museum. The censer, or incense burner, was returned to the museum on Tuesday, January 21, by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division following a lengthy investigation. The object  is estimated to be worth $1.5 million.

The green jade censer was donated to the Fogg Museum in 1942 and disappeared shortly after Thanksgiving in 1979. The work remained out of public view until it appeared at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in 2009. When the censer’s seller failed to provide documentation about the piece’s ownership history, Sotheby’s ran the object through the Art Loss Register of London. The database, which lists works that have been stolen, looted or disputed, alerted the U.S. government of the object’s reappearance and Homeland Security launched its investigation.

A ceremony was held at the Fogg to welcome the jade censer back into the museum’s collection.

Next month, Sotheby’s London will sell approximately 120 works from the collection of the late Jan Krugier, a preeminent dealer of 20th century art. Krugier, who passed away in 2008, sold works for Pablo Picasso’s family and was close friends with the artist. He operated galleries in Geneva and New York and was a powerful presence at art fairs such as TEFAF Maastricht and Art Basel.

37 works will be sold during an evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on February 5 and the remainder of the collection will be offered during the day sale on February 6. Most of the collection is comprised of works on paper and include pieces by Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso. Sotheby’s expects the entire collection to garner between $39 million and $57 million. The most expensive work to be offered is Alberto Giacometti’s cast bronze ‘L’homme qui marche III’, which is expected to fetch between $5 million and $8 million.

Last November, Christie’s New York held a highly anticipated sale of works from Krugier’s collection but the auction failed to meet expectations.

Two works by the famous Venetian painter Canaletto were sold earlier this month during Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in London for $15.7 million. The paintings, which belonged to the corporate collection of HSBC Holdings Plc, carried a pre-sale estimate of $19.5 million.

The two identically sized canvases depict St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge in Venice and were painted between 1738 and 1742. The works’ buyer has not been identified.

Three art historians who are affiliated with the state-run Shanghai Museum are saying that Sotheby’s sold a fake Chinese scroll for $8.2 million last September. ‘Gong Fu Tie,’ which soared past its high estimate of $500,000, was listed as a thousand-year-old masterpiece of Chinese calligraphy by Song Dynasty poet, Su Shi.

The historians are saying that the work, which was purchased by Shanghai businessman and collector, Liu Yiqian, was produced during the 19th century using an old method for copying and retracing artworks. The experts also stated that the forgery was made using a stone carving rather than the original work.

Sotheby’s released a statement saying that the auction house “firmly stands by the attribution of ‘The Gong Fu Tie Calligraphy’ to the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi.” If the scroll is deemed a forgery it could be a major blow to Sotheby’s, which is trying to expand its reach in China and touting its high standard of expertise to collectors both in and outside of the country. 

‘The Gossips,’ one of Norman Rockwell’s most famous paintings will go on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA for a limited time. The work, which appeared on the cover of the ‘Saturday Evening Post,’ was on loan to the institution for over two decades before it was sold during a record-setting auction at Sotheby’s in December. ‘The Gossips’ is being loaned to the Rockwell Museum by the work’s new owner.

Laurie Norton Moffatt, the Norman Rockwell Museum’s Director and CEO, said, “We are so happy to welcome back ‘The Gossips.’ The Museum is extremely grateful to the painting’s new owner for allowing us to once again share this beloved work with the public. We look forward to displaying the painting over the next few months, along with other special loans and our permanent collection of Norman Rockwell artwork.”

The figures in ‘The Gossips’ were inspired by Rockwell’s neighbors in Arlington, Vermont.

A long-lost impressionist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro will be sold at Sotheby’s London on February 5, 2014. ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinée de Printemps’ (1897) is expected to sell for £7 million to £10 million during the auction house’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale.

The painting belonged to the wealthy industrialist Max Silberberg, who amassed a considerable collection of 19th and 20th century artwork by masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Vincent Van Gogh. Between 1935 and 1937, Nazis forced Silberberg to sell his entire art collection before deporting him and his wife to Auschwitz, where they both perished. Silberberg’s son, Alfred, and his wife, Gerta, survived the Holocaust and fled to England. Following Alfred’s death in 1984, Gerta worked tirelessly to locate her late father-in-law’s collection. ‘Boulevard Montmartre’ was restituted to her in 2000 after having spent many years in the Israel Museum’s collection in Jerusalem. Gerta later loaned the painting back to the museum where it remained on public view until her death earlier this year.

Profits from the sale of the Pissarro painting will support the charitable causes championed by the late Gerta Silberberg.

An ancient statue sold at auction will be returned to Cambodia after an agreement was signed by Sotheby’s, the work's consignor and federal officials. The figure, which is believed to have been looted from a temple in the Cambodian jungle, has been at the center of a legal battle for nearly two years.

The 10th century sandstone statue depicting a Hindu warrior is estimated to be worth $2 million and was consigned by its long-time owner in 2011. Following the agreement to return the treasure, lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office withdrew allegations that Sotheby’s and the consignor knew of the work’s troubled provenance before importing it for sale. The consignor will receive no compensation for the statue from Cambodia.

A spokesman for Sotheby’s said the auction house was pleased that “the agreement confirms that Sotheby’s and its client acted properly at all times.”

Scott Schaefer, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Senior Curator of Paintings, will retire on January 21, 2014. Schaefer joined the Getty in 1999 after stints at Sotheby’s, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Schaefer, who helmed the Getty’s Paintings department for four years, helped the museum acquire a total of 70 paintings and pastels and five sculptures. Among the most important recent acquisitions are the Getty’s first paintings by Paul Gauguin, J.M.W. Turner’s Modern Rome, and a rare self-portrait by Rembrandt.

Timothy Potts, the Getty’s director, said, “Through his acquisitions, Scott has made an impact on every one of the Museum’s paintings galleries and, in particular, transformed our eighteenth-century French collection. We will miss his discerning eye, keen intelligence and above all his unswerving commitment to the Museum.”

Back in March, officials in charge of the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) announced that they were talking with Sotheby’s about launching a high-end art and antiques fair in China. TEFAF, which takes place in Maastrich each year and is widely considered the finest art fair in the world, has just announced that TEFAF Beijing will not be taking place in 2014.

The fair was going to be a collaboration between TEFAF and Sotheby’s joint venture with China’s state-owned Beijing Gehua Cultural Development Group with Sotheby’s taking a percentage of sales from the fair. TEFAF released a statement saying that “a high-end art fair, as presently envisaged, in Beijing is not viable at the current time,” but many believe that dealers were not keen on giving a percentage of their sales to the auction house. In addition, most of TEFAF’s high-selling items such as old master paintings, antiquities, and fine antique furniture, are not in-demand among Chinese collectors.

TEFAF Maastricht will take place as planned from March 14, 2014 through March 23, 2014.

S.C. Johnson & Son, a global manufacturer of household cleaning supplies and other consumer chemicals, has filed a lawsuit against Sotheby’s. The lawsuit concerns a rare desk and chair from the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed S.C. Johnson & Son Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin. The furniture, which was slated to be the highlight of the auction house’s upcoming 20th century design sale on December 18, exemplifies American Modernism.

According to a complaint filed in a New York federal court, S.C. Johnson claims that that the desk and chair are stolen goods. While the company does loan furniture and objects designed by Wright to museums, selling works is against their policy. The company’s statement went on to say that the removal of the desk and chair from the Administration Building was not authorized.

The sale’s catalogue lists the provenance of the desk as having been acquired by the chemist Elerslie E. Luther from S.C. Johnson during the early 1950s. The desk was alleged passed on by descent until it reached the current owner who acquired it from Jeffrey V. Luther. However, there is no evidence of a connection between Luther and S.C. Johnson in the company’s records. Similarly, the catalogue lists the chair as having been gifted by Samuel C. Johnson to a private collector in 1972. However, the bequest in inconsistent with S.C. Johnson’s records. 

The desk is estimated to sell for $400,000 to $600,000 while the chair is expected to net $80,000 to $120,000.