A 1985 oil on canvas by Sean Scully comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art day auction in New York on May 17. Linosa is estimated at $300,000-400,000. It was exhibited at the Princeton show A Decade of Visual Arts at Princeton Art Faculty 1975-1985.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Leda and the Swan – one of the jewels of the famed Devonshire Collection – is to be included at Sotheby’s Treasures from Chatsworth exhibition in New York this summer.
Created by Leonardo c1506 in Florence or Milan circa1506 – while he was working on the Mona Lisa – Leda and the Swan is a mythological preparatory drawing in pen, ink and wash. The work represents one of Da Vinci’s earliest designs for a composition of Leda, wife of the King of Sparta, and Jupiter, who has taken the form of a swan to seduce her. Hatching from the eggs at Leda’s feet are their offspring: the twins, Helen (later Helen of Troy) and Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux. The drawing was acquired by the Devonshire collection in the first half of the 18th century. The painting for which the drawing served as a study did not survive.
More than 40 masterworks have been selected for the Treasures from Chatsworth exhibition to represent the remarkable breadth of the Devonshire Collection – fine art from Rembrandt van Rijn to Lucian Freud, furniture and decorative objects from the 16th century to 21st-century design, and exceptional jewels, costumes, and archive materials commemorating historic occasions. It will run from June 28 to September 18 at Sotheby’s galleries at 1334 York Avenue, New York.
Around 130 couture and ready-to-wear items from the wardrobe of ’60’s icon and award-winning film star Claudia Cardinale will come up at an online sale by Sotheby’s from June 28 to July 4. They were all created by the leading Italian designers of the day including Emilio Schuberth, Roberto Capucci, Irene Galitzine, Barocco and Balestra, as well as the Parisian house Nina Ricci, which regularly dressed the actress during the 1960s.
Among the leading items is a long gown in fuchsia organza embroidered with floral motifs by Livia, worn by Cardinale for her first appearance at Cannes Film Festival in 1961 (estimate: €3,000-€4,000). There is a sheath dress entirely covered in black sequins and trimmed with pink and blue flowers, by Nina Ricci (Haute Couture collection, autumn-winter 1963-1964), which the actress modelled at the 37th Academy Awards in Los Angeles in 1965 as a presenter alongside Steve McQueen (estimate: €6,000-€8,000).
