Displaying items by tag: Christie's

A commercial statement filed in New York this summer has raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the sale of a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat at Christie’s, New York, on 13 May.

The work, The Field Next to the Other Road (1981), was consigned to the auction house by the dealer Tony Shafrazi and included in the Post-War and Contemporary evening sale where it sold for $37.1m, the sixth-highest price of the night.

A masterwork of Oceanic art has been added to the collection at the Toledo Museum of Art. Purchased at Christie’s in Paris on Dec. 3, 2015, the mask is one of four known distinguished examples from Saibai Island in the Torres Straits and has been heralded by scholars as the most notable. The Saibai Island Masks are among the rarest and most spectacular works of art created by the artists of the Torres Straits.

In 2013, the US Attorney’s Office in Newark, New Jersey, filed an action seeking the forfeiture of a 2,000-strong collection of photographs valued at more than $15m. The works had been bought by Philip Rivkin, the owner of the Houston-based company Green Diesel, who this June pleaded guilty for his role in a massive biodiesel fraud scheme. The Attorney’s Office says the photographs were bought using the proceeds of the fraud, allegedly to launder the money.

Marc Porter has resigned his position as Chairman at Christie’s and will leave the company at the end of the year. Earlier this year, he stepped down as the head of Private Sales.

Porter is expected to join Sotheby’s some time in the next year (presuming he has a non-compete and it lasts roughly a year.) At the moment, Porter’s role at Sotheby’s has not been disclosed. But there’s a very good chance he will take a prominent position leading business development for the auction house.

The blue bloods are selling their jewels.

At Christie’s and Bonhams auctions in December, pearls formerly belonging to Queen Isabella II of Spain, and Kashmir sapphires from an European princess are going under the hammer.

The natural colored pearls (pictured below), headlining Christie’s Important Jewels auction on December 2 in London, were originally collected for Marie Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, wife of King Ferdinand VII and Queen Isabella II’s mother.

Michael McGinnis, president of auction house Phillips, is leaving the company after 16 years as the smaller rival to Christie’s and Sotheby’s undergoes a transformation under new senior management.

McGinnis will step down on Nov. 30 to spend time with his family and pursue other opportunities, Phillips said Thursday in an e-mailed statement. After founding the contemporary-art department in 1999, McGinnis became the boutique auctioneer’s chief executive officer in 2012 and held the post until CEO Edward Dolman’s arrival in 2014, when he assumed his current role.

On the heels of its historic sale, "The Artist's Muse," which combined Impressionist and contemporary masterworks, and achieved a new $170 million Modigliani record, Christie's focused this evening's sale purely on postwar and contemporary art.

The sale realized $331.8 million compared with expectations of roughly $320 million. While, overall, it was a solid night, it was clear that the real fireworks had already passed; they happened the previous night.

Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver turned billionaire art collector, confirmed on Tuesday that he was the buyer of the painting of a nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani that sold for $170.4 million at Christie’s New York on Monday night.

Speaking by telephone from Shanghai, the Chinese collector said he planned to bring the work back to the city, where he and his wife have two private museums.

A spectacular pink diamond, the largest of its kind to ever appear at auction, sold for $28.5 million (26.6 million euros) on Tuesday, narrowly beating auction house Christie's projection. 

An unidentified bidder snatched up the 16.08-carat rare gemstone, kicking off a week of auctions that could see another colored diamond set a new world record.

That stone, a 12.03-carat blue diamond described by experts as flawless, is being sold by rival auction house Sotheby's on Wednesday, and could fetch a record $55 million.

Christie's on Monday smashed world record prices at auction for Amedeo Modigliani and Roy Lichtenstein, selling works by the artists for $170.4 million and $95.37 million respectively.

Modigliani's "Nu Couche" or "Reclining Nude," painted in 1917-18, sold in New York after a frantic nine-minute bidding war in the first time the painting has ever come to auction. 

It was the second highest price ever achieved at auction for a work or art, Christie's said. Applause erupted in the packed room when the sale concluded.