Displaying items by tag: auction records

Museum-goers are anticipating this fall’s debut of the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, part of a long-term cultural agreement with the French government. One recent acquisition may surprise visitors: Museum officials in Abu Dhabi say they have paid Los Angeles’s Armand Hammer Foundation an undisclosed sum for a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington.

The 1822 painting shows the first American president sitting at a desk, one hand resting on a document, the other cradling a sword hilt. Other Washington portraits by Stuart have sold for around $8 million, according to dealers and auction records.

The gavel will not come down on the first lot of New York's major fall auctions until Tuesday, but records have already fallen and more are virtually certain once the bidding actually begins.

With a global pool of collectors competing for more than $1.5 billion worth of fine art, the city's top auction houses are expecting record values for trophy works at sales over the next two weeks.

Records tumbled this season in the highest-grossing flagship summer auctions that Sotheby’s London has ever seen. Together, sales in the four key categories of Old Masters, Impressionist & Modern, Contemporary Art and ‘Treasures’ totalled a record £360 million - with top estimates repeatedly smashed and record numbers of participants engaging in the sales.

The strong results were fuelled by a burgeoning interest from collectors from the new markets - many of whom are making their presence ever more strongly felt in Sotheby’s London salerooms, their interest constantly expanding into an ever broader range of fields.

According to a report by Arts Economics, global sales of art and antiquities fetched $65.9 billion in 2013, an annual growth of 8 percent. The report, which was published by the European Fine Art Foundation in Maastricht, Netherlands, showed that the global art market is almost on par with the pre-recession years.

The sale of postwar and contemporary artworks has increased by 11 percent from 2012, led mainly by sales in the United States, which increased by 25 percent in 2013. Last year, astronomical auction records were set for Andy Warhol ($105.4 million), Francis Bacon ($142.4 million), and Roy Lichtenstein ($56.1 million). The report solidified the U.S.’ role as the international art market leader, representing 38 percent of the market by volume, a 5 percent increase from 2012.

China accounted for 24 percent of the market, a slight decline from 2012, while the U.K. represented 20 percent.