Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

Five paintings by French impressionist Claude Monet, including his famous 1908 "Le Grand Canal" view of Venice, sold for a total of $84 million (73 million euros) in a London auction on Tuesday.

"Le Grand Canal", a hazy blue-and-green view of the banks of the Italian city painted at the peak of Monet's career, sold for $35.6 million (31.4 million euros).

It was part of a Sotheby's auction of impressionist and modern art works including paintings by masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse, and sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

Many in the crowd of dealers, collectors, and onlookers attending Sotheby's main sale of Old Master paintings on Thursday January 29 remarked on the difference that a single day made when contrasting the sale with the dismal results at Christie's Old Masters sale the day before (see: Canaletto, Caravaggio Fail to Sell at Christie's Worst Old Masters Sale Since 2002).

The sale totaled $57 million, as compared with an overall presale estimate of $54–77.6 million. Of 104 lots offered, 73 (or 70 percent) found buyers. The stronger sold-by-value rate, 78 percent, reflected spirited bidding on a few key lots.

Sales of Old Masters got off to a slow start as about $42 million of art from the 15th to 19th century was auctioned in New York.

Christie’s sold $36.6 million, missing its low estimate of $54 million in three sales yesterday. Of the 54 lots in its paintings sale, only 22 were sold. Sotheby’s drawings sale totaled $5.3 million, within its estimate of $4.2 million to $5.9 million.

The auctions, which continue through Jan. 30, are offering about $200 million of paintings, drawings and sculptures. The auction houses are trying to revive interest in what had been the most popular category until the 1980s, when other groups such as modern and contemporary art gained favor.

It’s about to get more expensive to shop at Sotheby’s. The auction house announced late Monday that it was effectively raising the rates it charges many of its buyers by changing the rate thresholds.

The first change in Sotheby’s rate structure in nearly two years means that beginning Feb. 1 buyers at its auctions will pay 25 percent on the first $200,000 of a hammer price, up from a previous low threshold of $100,000; 20 percent on the value between $200,000 and $3 million, up from the previous range of $100,000 to $2 million; and 12 percent on any amount remaining above $3 million, up from the previous upper threshold of $2 million.

Claude Monet's acclaimed work "L’Embarcadère," 1871, is to be offered at Sotheby’s forthcoming London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 3 February 2015. The Dutch landscape by Claude Monet is appearing on the market for the first time in a quarter of a century. The painting has been internationally exhibited at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and provides the perfect embodiment of the evolution of Impressionism. "L’Embarcadère" was painted by Monet in Zaandam in Holland, where the artist lived with his family for four months over the summer of 1871.

The artist produced a series of 25 works that explored several areas surrounding Zaandam, focussing his attention upon the architectural motifs of the Dutch landscape, canals, mills, and boats. Within a strong compositional framework and in a boldly inventive style, Monet’s use of color and the areas of lively brushwork represent his attempts to evoke the atmosphere of the scene, and Monet includes subtle, but evocative, signifiers of the weather in the full sails of the river-boats, glistening yellow painted houses - and the cool relief of the shaded river-bank.

"Old Masters, New Voices" is a themed panel series hosted annually by the Old Master Paintings department at Sotheby’s, inviting contemporary scholars, artists, and specialists to take a new look at the influence of Old Master Paintings. This year’s panel, coinciding with Sotheby’s Master Week sales on January 29, will focus on the role played by food in the history of Western Art. From the sumptuous feasts so delicately reproduced in 17th century painting, to the use of food in 21st century performance art, the panel discussion will explore the ways in which artists have used food throughout history.

Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s Senior Vice President and Head of Old Master Paintings Department and George Wachter, Sotheby’s Executive Vice President and Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide invite the public to join Old Masters, New Voices 2015 panel discussion, moderated by Michael Wilson, former Editor in Chief of La Cucina Italiana.

A bleak self-portrait by the postwar British artist Francis Bacon will lead Sotheby’s upcoming Contemporary Art Evening Sale on February 10, 2015, in London. Two Studies for Self-Portrait (1977) is one of only three diptychs painted by Bacon after the death of his partner, George Dyer. Out of the three, it is the only one ever to be offered at auction. The other double self-portraits remain in private collections.

Another Bacon painting, Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966), dominated last year’s contemporary art auctions in London. Offered by Christie’s, the painting fetched $70 million -- the highest price ever paid at auction for a single panel by the artist.

Sotheby’s announced the auction, on March 18 in Paris, of the private collection of the Dillée family, a renowned Parisian dynasty of specialists and collectors of furniture and works of art. Consisting of 450 lots, the sale will be divided into two sessions, including French decorative arts from the 17th to the 19th centuries, Old Master paintings and drawings, bronzes, scientific objects and Antique arms.

Mario Tavella, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and Chairman Private Collections, said: “Our auction house is deeply honoured to be entrusted once again with the sale of an iconic collection of works of art, which, in this instance, has been carefully selected by the expert eyes of three generations of the Dillée family. Their Cabinet d’Expertise has seen some of the most beautiful objects go through its doors before being passed onto collectors, auction houses and institutions. We are hoping that the Dillée sale will attract new and old generations of collectors, as well as the notable museums that the Dillée family has dealt with in the past.”

Sotheby's Paris has announced the sale of the Louis Grandchamp des Raux collection of French 17th- and 18th-century paintings, "Art Daily" reports. According to the auction house, this is the most significant collection of paintings from the period to hit the auction block in two decades.

The fifty piece-collection includes works from some of the era's most notable artists, including François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Desportes, Louyse Moillon, Anne Vallayer-Coster and Hubert Robert as well as works by more obscure names such as Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié and Pierre-Antoine Lemoine.

George Washington University plans to sell the historic schoolhouse in Georgetown that it took control of this summer as part of a court approved breakup of the financially-troubled Corcoran Gallery of Art. The agreement sent the museum’s art collection to the National Gallery of Art and allowed the university to absorb its College of Art and Design.

The university said it has selected TTR Sotheby’s International Realty to list the historic brick building, known as the Fillmore, and its one acre of property. The initial sale price is $14 million.