Displaying items by tag: Auction

The London branches of Sotheby’s and Bonhams will join forces with the Cologne-based auction house, Lempertz, to sell off works from the late Gustav Rau’s (1922-2002) vast collection. Rau, a well-known art collector and philanthropist, passed away suddenly in 2002, leaving his remarkable collection to Unicef’s German branch. Rau’s holdings, which include many Old Master and Impressionist paintings and sculptures, were estimated to be worth around $600 million at the time of the bequest.

While Unicef has sold a number of Rau’s works to fund ongoing projects over the years, this is the first time a significant portion of the collection has come up for sale. The auction, which is planned to take place this summer, will feature works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), El Greco (1541-1614), and Claude Monet (1840-1926) among many others. The works are all in pristine condition as Rau either left his collection in storage or offered them to museums for exhibition purposes rather than hanging them in his own home.

All proceeds from the sales will benefit children’s causes, specifically in emerging countries. Rau, who spent much of his life working as a doctor in Africa, was a champion of clean drinking water initiatives and better vaccination practices in developing areas. Unicef plans to use a large portion of the funds to finish a children’s hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that Rau founded before his death.      

Thanks to the keen eyes of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curators, the institution snapped up an important Old Master drawing at an auction at Swann Galleries for $840 (with premium). The auction, which took place on January 29, 2013, was part of the highly anticipated Old Masters Week in New York.

The drawing was described in the auction catalogue as being from the early 19^th century and of French origin. An illustration in brush, black ink, and gray wash of Socrates dying, the drawing was said to be modeled after Jacques-Louis David’s (1748-1825) painting The Death of Socrates, a work that resides in the Met’s permanent collection. The original painting by David was acquired by the museum in 1931 and is among the artist’s greatest works.

As it turns out, the alleged copy, which was given an estimated selling price of $500-$700, was a previously unrecorded preliminary compositional study for David’s painting. Along with the painting, the Met owns a well-developed chalk drawing of The Death of Socrates, which helped the Met’s curators to authenticate the compositional drawing despite differences in setting, positions, and gestures of the figures featured in the painting.

The drawing was acquired by the museum via Katrin Bellinger, a frequent agent for the institution.

On June 5, 2013 the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. will auction 25 rugs from its William A. Clark Collection at Sotheby’s New York. The rugs, which are from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, are estimated to bring as much as $9.6 million.

The rugs were part of a bequest from William Clark (1839-1925), a Montana-based billionaire entrepreneur-turned-senator, to the Corcoran in 1925. The gift was comprised of 200 paintings and drawings and a number of other works, including the rugs.

The Corcoran will use the proceeds from the sale to support future acquisitions that will better fit the institution’s focus on American and contemporary art. While the Corcoran has endured recent financial troubles, the money will not be used for operating expenses in keeping with its deaccession policy.

Highlights from the Corcoran sale include the Clark Sickle-Leaf Carpet, which is expected to garner between $5 million and $7 million. An unknown Persian artist created the rug during the first half of the 17^th century possibly for the shah. The rarely exhibited Sickle-Leaf is one of the most iconic and important carpets to appear at auction. Another rug known as the Lafoes Carpet, which measures 44 feet long, is expected to bring between $800,000 and $1.2 million.  

In 2006 The Cardsharps was sold to the late collector and scholar Sir Denis Mahon for just over $65,000 at an auction at Sotheby’s in London. At the time of the sale, Sotheby’s identified the work as being by a “follower” of the Italian master, Caravaggio (1571-1610). However, after his purchase, Mahon identified the work as a Caravaggio original and obtained an export license for the work that put its value at $15.5 million according to a claim filed at London’s High Court of Justice.

Due to their failure to identify The Cardsharps as an authentic Caravaggio painting, Sotheby’s is being sued by Lancelot William Thwaytes, who consigned the work to the 2006 auction. Thwaytes is now seeking unspecified damages, interest, and costs relating to the price difference between the painting’s 2006 selling price and what he believes it was actually worth on the open market that year had it been properly attributed to Caravaggio. Thwaytes claims that Sotheby’s was negligent in its research prior to the work’s sale, leading to its extraordinarily low selling price.

However, Sotheby’s stands behind its belief that the painting is a copy and not a work by Caravaggio’s hand, citing Caravaggio expert Professor Richard Spear and several other leading scholars. Sotheby’s added that their view was supported by the market’s reception to the painting when it was put up for auction.

Mahon, who passed away in 2011, donated 58 works from his collection worth around $155 million to various U.K. galleries.

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.

Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) Femme Assise Prés D’une Fenêtre (1932) sold for nearly $45 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern evening sale on Tuesday, February 5, 2013 in London. The coveted portrait of Picasso’s lover and muse, Marie-Therese Walter, came from a private collection and was last seen on the market in 1997 when it sold for $7.5 million. The portrait was guaranteed to sell due to a third-party “irrevocable bid” and while the buyer remains anonymous, some believe it was the guarantor, represented by Patti Wong, the chairman of Sotheby’s Asia.

The auction, which totaled $190 million, also included a separately catalogued section of 21 Surrealist works. All but three works sold, adding $26 million to the overall sale. Highlights from this section included Joan Miro’s (1893-1983) Femme revant de l’evasion (1945), which sold for $13 million and also carried a third-party guarantee.

Another considerable sale of the night was a series of three drawings by Egon Schiele (1890-1918), which brought $22 million. The works were put on sale by Vienna’s Leopold Museum. Another Schiele work, a pencil, gouache, and watercolor piece completed in 1915, sold to Wong on behalf a client for $13 million.

The sale was Sotheby’s second highest for an Impressionist sale in London.

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.”

Christie’s will be holding an online-only auction of works by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) from February 26 through March 5, 2013. The sale, which aims to grant a broader audience the chance to own a Warhol original, will benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

125 paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints by Warhol, an art market powerhouse, will be available. The works feature a wide range of pre-sale estimates, spanning from $600 to $70,000. The online format allows interested buyers to browse available works, make bids, and receive notifications by phone or email about the sale and status of their bids.

Although this is Christie’s first online-only Warhol sale, the auction house will be hosting more throughout 2013 as part of an ongoing partnership with the Warhol Foundation. The weeklong digital sale marks the first time Christie’s has ever offered online-only Post War and Contemporary art sales.

Highlights from Christie’s online sale include one of Warhol’s famous Campbell’s soup cans filled with concrete (circa 1964), four gelatin silver prints of Steven Spielberg stitched together (circa 1976-1986), and a graphite on paper drawing titled Madonna and Child (circa 1981).