Displaying items by tag: Christie's

The former director of the Barnes Foundation is crossing over to the commercial side of the art world. Derek Gillman, who led the Barnes’s controversial move from its original home in Merion, Pennsylvania to downtown Philadelphia, joined Christie’s on January 5 as chairman and senior vice president of Impressionist and Modern art, the Americas.

Gillman joins the auction house in the midst of a management shake-up. Last month, Christie’s chief executive officer Steven Murphy was replaced by Patricia Barbizet.

Christie’s announces the sale of two Italian private collections, the first from the Rome apartment of Principessa Ismene Chigi Della Rovere and the second from the palazzo of a Noble Genoese Family. Comprising over 225 lots this diverse sale offers collectors and decorators a wonderful insight into 20th century Italian style and glamour, presenting a rich and varied selection of Old Master pictures and decorative objects from around the world, which range from 18th century Italian and French furniture and Art Nouveau glass, to Chinese and Japanese works of art. Estimates range from £500 to £25,000 and the pre-sale viewing will be at Christie’s 85 Old Brompton Road from January 31 to February 3. The auction will be held on February 4, 2015 at Christie’s South Kensington and provides an opportunity to acquire exceptional antiques and works of art from two noble Italian families.

Christie's New York has announced that it will auction an extraordinarily rare, early Caravaggio entitled "Boy Peeling a Fruit" (1591) on January 28, as part of Old Masters Week, Art Daily reports.

The masterpiece, which depicts a young boy sitting at a table peeling an orange, has a pre-sale estimate of $3 to $5 million. "Boy Peeling a Fruit" is considered to be one of the earliest known paintings by Caravaggio, and it displays the artist's signature use of dramatic lighting contrasts.

Thieves have breached stringent security at Christie's London flagship headquarters to pull off a heist valued at up to a million pounds. The stolen items, thought to be mostly jewelery and small antiques, included works by the Russian jewelers Fabergé.

Police have been investigating the theft for two weeks and even though they have CCTV footage, have failed to identify any of the suspects, who may be of an Eastern European background.

Paul Cézanne's painting "Vue sur L'Estaque et Le Château d'If" (1883–1885) will go under the hammer at Christie's London in February 2015. The painting has been in the private collection of British magnate Samuel Courtauld since he purchased the work in 1936.

“The sun here is so terrific that objects appear silhouetted not only in white or black, but in blue, red, brown, violet,” Cézanne wrote in a letter to his friend Camille Pissarro in 1876. The artist's planes of colour prefigured Cubism, and the view of pines and the Mediterranean sea beyond red roof tiles of Estaque, a fishing port near Marseille, was a recurrent theme in the Cézanne's work.

"The Four Times of Day" (circa 1850) by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot  has been purchased for the nation with the help of a grant from the Art Fund. The four panels have a long association with the UK. Representing Morning, Noon, Evening and Night, they were acquired by artist Frederic Lord Leighton in 1865 and were among the earliest Corot works to be acquired by a British collector. Lord Leighton displayed them as the focal point of his London home, where they provided inspiration for his fellow Victorian artists. After his death, the paintings spent more than a century in the same family collection and have been on loan to the National Gallery since 1997. The pictures were acquired for Lord Wantage at Christie’s in 1896 and their sale to the nation was negotiated by Christie’s.

Corot painted the four large panels, which trace the deepening light of the sky from sunrise to star-studded night, to decorate the Fontainebleau studio of his friend and fellow painter Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps.

A long-lost painting by the Spanish Baroque artist Sebastián de Llanos Valdés, which was missing for over 70 years, has been discovered in the UK, after an unidentified individual tried to consign "Penitent Maria Magdalena" to Christie's, according to a DPA report. However, the Staatliche Museum Schwerin, which owns the painting, had previously entered the artwork into Germany's centralized "Lost Art" database for stolen artworks. Since the attempted sale the museum and auction house were able to negotiate the work's return; with the individual who found and consigned the Valdés reportedly being offered a reward by way of compensation.

The artist was born in Seville, and was a pupil of Francisco Herrera the Elder, he worked chiefly for private patrons. In 1660, the artist actively supported Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in founding the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), afterwards making frequent donations of oil and other materials for the students' use.

Guy Bennett, a former auction house expert and dealer based in London has been tapped by Qatar Museums (formerly Qatar Museums Authority). According to Carol Vogel in the "New York Times," Qatar Museums announced this week that Bennett will become the institution's director of collections and acquisitions. A 13-year veteran of Christie's auction house, specializing in 20th-century art, Bennett left the company in 2009. Later that year, he formed Pelham Holdings, an art advisory firm.

After four years as Christie’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Steven Murphy announced that he will leave his post at the auction house. The surprise announcement, which was issued on Tuesday, December 2, came just twelve days after William Ruprecht, the CEO of Sotheby’s for fourteen years, announced his resignation. The two auction houses have long battled for primacy in the art market, though Christie’s has been considered the leader in recent years thanks to a growing online presence, expanded markets in China and Mumbai, and astronomical contemporary art sales.

Murphy will be succeeded by Patricia Barbizet, the Executive Director of Artémis Group, the investment company founded by French billionaire François Pinault, who also owns Christie’s. Barbizet will retain her position at Artémis as well as her role as the Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of Christie’s.

Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian purchased a Tibetan tapestry for HK$348 million ($45 million) at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong today, breaking the record for the most expensive Chinese work of art he set in April.

Liu, who bought a HK$214 million Chengua-era ceramic cup -- nicknamed the Chicken Cup for its imperial allegorical depiction using poultry -- and then paid for it with his Centurion credit card at Sotheby’s, plans to show both works in his private Shanghai museum.