Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

Supporters of the Detroit Institute of Arts reacted with dismay Thursday to Sotheby’s announcement that it will auction A. Alfred Taubman’s legendary art collection, as that means it will not go to the museum.

Sotheby’s statement said the 500-plus works “valued in excess of $500 million” will be on the block in four auctions starting Nov. 4 in New York. The news release called it “the most valuable private collection ever offered at auction.”

Fine gray pearl necklaces are rarely seen at auction, making the auction of the Cowdray Pearls one of the most exciting highlights of Sotheby’s Hong Kong jewelry sale.

With an estimate of $4.5‑7 million, the necklace was formerly in the collection of Viscountess Cowdray, Lady Pearson (1860‑1932) and was strung and mounted by Cartier. It comprises 42 natural gray saltwater pearls well-matched in luster, shape, and size, and is accompanied by a pair of natural gray pearl earrings, also by Cartier London.

The colorful, stained-glass effect decor items produced by Tiffany Studios represent some of the most beautiful and quintessential specimens of pre-war design such as the Oriental Poppy lamp, which sold for $1.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York this past May. As a painter, Louis Comfort Tiffany was fascinated with the interplay of light and color, and using opalescent glass as his canvas, created masterful renderings of nature — such as flowers or landscape scenes — and decorative geometric patterns in lampshades and leaded-glass windows that popped with color and texture.

The fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent once declared of his partner Pierre Bergé: “The world will talk about a Goût Bergé, just as it speaks of a Goût Noailles.”

As the $484 million auction of the couple’s art collection at Christie’s in 2009 can attest to, this “Bergé taste” is the epitome of a keen eye, and a penchant for objects with great history and pedigree. Over the next two years, more examples of Bergé’s fine collectibles are scheduled to go under the hammer in Paris, this time at Sotheby’s — in the form of 1,600 precious books, manuscripts and musical scores from his personal library that date from the 15th to the 20th century.

St Giles House in Dorset, the family seat of the Earls of Shaftesbury since the 17th century, is the winner of the 2015 Historic Houses Association (HHA) & Sotheby’s Restoration Award. The house was begun under the first Earl of Shaftesbury—a founding member of the Whig party—in 1651, built with elements from a 14th-century manor house that already existed on the site

The prize-winning restoration project was led by the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, who was only 25 years old when he inherited the 5,000-acre estate in 2005, and the Countess of Shaftesbury.

Sotheby’s, the New York-based auctioneer of art and collectibles, reported a 13 percent decrease in second-quarter profit that fell below analyst expectations because of a change in the sales calendar and a loss on a painting sold during the period.

Net income was $67.6 million, or 96 cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30, compared with $77.6 million, or $1.11, in the same period last year, Sotheby’s said Friday. The company was expected to report earnings of $1.22 a share, according to the average of five analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Though the art market continues to post huge gains, six-month figures released by Christie’s today show at $4.5 billion a flat line and close to virtual tie for what the market leader firm achieved for the same period in 2014. That jumbo figure includes both auction and private sales, the latter contributing $515 million to the overall tally, substantially down from $828.2 million achieved for the same period in 2014.

A flea market find may mean a big payout for a Texas man. Ray Riley believes that the canvas he picked up for a mere $90 earlier this year is an authentic Sigmar Polke painting.

Polke has had a resurgence over the past few years, with a retrospective of his work at MoMA this past year and a new record for his work set at auction in May this year when it sold for $27.1 million at Sotheby's New York (prior to that, the record was $9.2 million, set in 2011).

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.