Displaying items by tag: Christie's

A flawless D-color diamond weighing 101.73 carats will be offered as part of Christie’s International’s jewelry auction at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva, Switzerland on May 15, 2013. The pear-shaped gem, which is the largest colorless diamond of such high quality to appear at auction, is estimated to garner about $20 million. An anonymous client is selling the rare stone that was recently cut from a rough diamond weighing 236 carats found at the Jwaneng mine in Botswana. Workers spent 21 months polishing the jewel.

While colorless stones tend to be less desirable than their colored counterparts, the record price for a colorless stone at auction is $21.5 million, which was set by the 76.02 carat cushion-shaped Archduke Joseph Diamond that sold at Christie’s in Geneva in November 2012. The diamond heading to Christie’s in May is not only the largest colorless stone but also a chemically pure Type IIA diamond, which accounts for less than 2% of the world’s diamond production.

The buyer of the pear-shaped diamond will have the honor of naming the extraordinary jewel, securing its identity among the most desirable diamonds in the world.

London’s National Gallery announced that they will send three cherished works from their collection on a tour of galleries and museums around the country between 2014 and 2016. Édouard Manet’s (1832-1883) The Execution of Maximilian (circa 1867-8), Canaletto’s (1697-1768) A Regatta on the Grand Canal (circa 1740), and Rembrandt’s (1606-1669) Self Portrait at the Age of 63 will comprise the traveling exhibition titled The Masterpiece Tour (1669).

Officials at the National Gallery hope that The Masterpiece Tour will promote understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of Old Master paintings to a wider audience. Christie’s is assisting the museum with the endeavor and will send one masterpiece on tour per year. Each annual tour will run from January to July and visit three different regional museums, spending approximately six weeks in each venue.

The first painting to go on tour in 2014 will be Manet’s masterpiece depicting Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian’s deadly capture by Mexican forces. The work was cut up after the artist’s death and the fragments were eventually purchased by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and reassembled on a single canvas. The painting has been a part of the National Gallery’s collection since 1918.

Canaletto’s painting of the annual carnival regatta in Venice will tour during 2015 and Rembrandt’s self-portrait, which was painted during the final year of the artist’s life, will go on tour in 2016. The poignant work has been on display at the National Gallery since 1851.

Christie’s online-only auction of 125 works by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), which ran from February 26-March 5, 2013 was a huge success. The sale, which included paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints, garnered $2.3 million, doubling its pre-sale estimate. Proceeds from the auction will benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which is dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts.

The auction, which was the first online-only Warhol sale, attracted 65,000 visitors and 263 bidders from 36 countries. The featured works had estimates ranging from $600 to $70,000 and many have never been on public view. Highlights from the sale included I Love Your Kiss Forever, a 1964 lithograph of Marilyn Monroe’s lips that fetched $90,000, more than 40 times its pre-sale estimate; In the Bottom of My Garden (circa 1956), a complete book of offset lithographs colored by hand that realized $80,250; and a t-shirt screen printed with Warhol’s Self-Portrait with Fright Wig, which garnered $47,500. The only lot that failed to sell was a graphite on paper drawing titled Madonna and Child (circa 1981), which was expected to bring $30,000-$40,000.

The next Andy Warhol @ Christie’s sale is in April 2013 and will be dedicated to Warhol’s legacy at the famed New York nightclub, Studio 54. Christie’s will host a number of online auctions throughout 2013 as part of an ongoing partnership with the Warhol Foundation.

Two weeks after Christie’s announced that they will be increasing their buyer’s premium, a fee charged to buyers, Sotheby’s revealed that they will raise their commissions as well. It is the first time Sotheby’s has boosted its buyer’s premium since 2008.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s had both been charging 25% for the first $50,000 of a sale, 20% on the amount from $50,000 to $1 million and 12% on the remainder. Sotheby’s new fees will take 25% of the first $100,000 of a purchase, 20% from $100,000 to $1.9 million, and 12% of the rest. While both auction houses are raising commissions, it will be slightly cheaper for patrons to buy at Christie’s as their new fees charge 25% for the first $75,000 of a purchase, 20% on the amount from $75,001 to $1.5 million, and 12% on whatever is left.

Sotheby’s announced the hike on Thursday, February 28, 2013, the same day that the auction house reported a decline in both revenues and profits for 2012. Sotheby’s revenues for the year were $768.5 million, an 8% decrease from the year before. The auction house attributes the decline to a reduction in commissions. In recent years Sotheby’s has given a percentage of the buyer’s premiums to its biggest sellers as an incentive to maintain their business, a practice that also cuts into the auction house’s profits.

Christie’s announced that they will be raising their buyer’s premium, a fee charged to buyers at auction, for the first time since 2008. The auction house had been charging 25 percent for the first $50,000 of a sale, 20 percent on the amount from $50,001 to $1 million, and 12 percent on the remaining price. The increase, which will go into effect on March 11, 2013, will bring the charges up to 25 percent for the first $75,000, 20 percent on the amount from $75,001 to $1.5 million, and 12 percent on the rest.

In recent years auction houses have started offering certain sellers a percentage of the buyer’s premiums, which can result in lower profits for the auction companies but ultimately brings in more business. Last month Christie’s announced that its sales for 2012 totaled $6.27 billion, a 10 percent increase from its 2011 sales. While no other auction houses have announced increases in buyer’s premium, it has been a trend among them in the past.

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary evening art auction garnered over $127 million on February 14, 2013, the highest total ever for a February sale of its kind at Christie’s London. Out of the 72 lots presented, 65 were sold; the auction total cruised past the pre-sale estimate of $86.8 million to $120.8 million.

The top lot of the night was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s (1960-1988) text-laden acrylic, oilstick, and paper collage on canvas titled Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) (1983), which sold for $14.5 million. French collector John Sayegh-Belchatowski purchased the work, which carried a third-party guarantee. In 2012, Museum Security was pulled from a Christie’s New York auction after a legal dispute between an owner, the British aristocrat Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill, and dealers, Gerard Faggionato and Alberto Mugrabi, broke out. The case was settled out of court and the work was re-offered at Christie’s last night.

Other highlights from the blockbuster sale include Gerhard Richter’s (b. 1932) Abstraktes Bild (889-14) (2004), which sold to a telephone bidder for $13.2 million; Francis Bacon’s (1902-1992) Man in Blue VI (1954), which was also snapped up by a telephone bidder for $7.8 million; and David Hockney’s (b. 1937) figurative painting Great Pyramid at Giza with Broken Head from Thebes (1963), which went for $5.5 million.

Basquiat, Bacon, and Richter garnered major sales at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, who’s contemporary sale the night before brought $116 million, proving that the category has not lost its edge in the art market.

Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in London totaled $116 million on February 12, 2013. The sale featured a number of works by art market powerhouses such as Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), and Gerhard Richter (b. 1932). Bacon’s oil on canvas triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait (1980), which sold for $21.5 million, was the evening’s top lot. German collector, Jurgen Hall, who plans to loan the work to a major international institution, purchased the painting.  

44 of the 54 lots offered sold and over 20 works brought more than $1 million dollars. Highlights included two Richter paintings, Wolke (Cloud) (1976) and Abstraktes Bild (769-1) (1992), which sold for $11.9 million and $12.8 million respectively. Basquiat’s Untitled (Pech/Oreja) (1982-83), a large-scale acrylic, oil stick, and paper collage, went for $10. 7 million and another one of his hefty works, Five Fish Species (1983), sold for $7.8 million. Both works were purchased by New York-based art dealer Jose Mugrabi.

While there were some major sales, the auction fell comfortably within its pre-sale estimate of $95.7 million to $132.2 million. The contemporary auctions will continue tonight, Feburary 13, 2013, at Christie’s London.

The success of Sotheby’s and Christie’s Impressionist, Surrealist, and Modern sales in London this week is proof that the demand for such works is on the rise. On February 6, 2013 Christie’s brought in $214 million worth of sales, just one day after Sotheby’s evening auction garnered $228 million.

The top lot at Christie’s was Amedeo Modigliani’s (1884-1920) portrait of his common-law wife titled Jeanne Hebuterne (au chapeau) (1919). The work, which was completed just one year before Modigliani’s death, sold for $42.1 million to one of Christie’s Russian-speaking client services representatives, who was bidding on behalf of a client. The work significantly surpassed its high estimate of $34.5 million.

Other major sales from Christie’s auction included Rene Magritte’s (1898-1967) landscape Le plagiat (Plagiary) (1940), which sold for nearly $8.2 million, Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) Nu accroupi (1960), which went for $11.4 million, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841-1919) L’ombrelle (1878), which garnered $15.2 million.

With 89% of lots sold, the sale was a record in the Impressionist, Surrealist, and Modern category by Christie’s in February in the UK.

Christie’s International announced that they will be closing their Haunch of Venison subsidiaries in New York and London in March 2013. The gallery in Chelsea will close after its exhibition, How to Tell the Future from the Past, ends its run on March 2. The London gallery, known as the Yard, will be converted to a permanent exhibition and sales space for Christie’s private sales department.

Founded by art dealers Harry Blain and Graham Southern in 2002, Haunch of Venison represents and exhibits the works of emerging and established contemporary artists. The gallery’s name comes from the London courtyard, Haunch of Venison Yard, where it was originally based. Christie’s bought the gallery, which had branches in London, Berlin, and New York, in 2007. Haunch of Venison’s Berlin branch closed in 2010, the same year Blain and Southern left Haunch to start a new gallery, BlainSouthern.

Christie’s decision to shutter the Haunch of Venison galleries came as private sales have been gaining ground for the auction house. The restructuring will focus the company’s attention on those private sales rather than working as a primary gallery representing artists. Haunch of Venison has also withdrawn from the upcoming European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht.

Christie’s Renaissance and Old Master sales, which ran from January 29-31, 2013 in New York, set a number of important records this week. First, during a sale of works by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) on January 29, a woodcut titled The Rhinoceros sold for $866,500, setting a record for the artist at auction. The piece, which was completed in 1515, surpassed its presale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The auction, which presented 65 works from a private collection, brought $6 million in total.

The auction house’s Renaissance and Old Master sales brought in a total of $88.4 million, the highest total for the series of sales in New York since 2006. Contributing to the auctions’ huge success was a number of groundbreaking sales. Fra Bartolomeo’s (1472-1517) The Madonna and Child brought $12.96 million, the top price paid for the artist at auction. Sandro Botticelli’s (1445-1510) Madonna and Child with Young Saint John the Baptist sold for $10.4 million, also setting a record for the artist at auction. The Botticelli painting had previously been a part of the Rockefeller family’s collection for over 50 years.  

Nicholas Hall, Co-Chairman of Old Masters and 19^th Century Art at Christie’s said, “We are so pleased by the results of this week’s Renaissance sale that we have decided to repeat a themed Renaissance sale in January 2014.” He added that the sales have affirmed, “The strength and enduring appeal of Old Master works of art.”