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Étoile Bleue by Miro sold for a record price at Sotheby’s. (Click on image to enlarge).

THERE was a record for Joan Miró at Sotheby’s  in London this evening when a 1927 work Peinture (Étoile Bleue) sold for £23,561,250.  This evening’s record price – the highest price for any work of art sold in London thus far this year – coincides with a moment of unprecedented demand for Surrealist art. In the past year there has been records for Dali, Magritte and Paul Delvaux.  The previous record of £16.8 million for a Miro was estabished in London just four months ago.

Peinture (Étoile Bleue) is from Miró’s seminal dream paintings cycle.  There are examples at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Fondation Beyeler in Basle, the Tate in London and the Metropolitan in New York. The luscious blue palette he used influenced both Yves Klein and Mark Rothko.  The work was pursued by four determined bidders. In 2007 it sold at auction of £8.35 million.

Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Europe, said “Peinture (Étoile Bleue) is one of Miró’s most important paintings, effortlessly bridging the transition between figurative and abstract art. His works from this period are supremely modern, timeless and of great universal appeal, making this precisely the type of painting that today’s international collectors are prepared to lock horns over, as they did this evening. ”

UPDATE: Sotheby’s London sales of  Impressionist & Modern Art this week achieved a combined total of £89.2m, bringing the total for Impressionist & Modern Art worldwide at Sotheby’s so far this year to £449m, a 12% increase on the same period last year.  This is the second highest year-to-date total for worldwide sales of Impressionist & Modern Art in the company’s history.  Bidders from 38 countries participated in the sales this week.

THE auction of European Sculpture and Works of Art: Medieval to Modern at Sotheby’s in London on July 3 comprises 200 lots estimated to bring in more than £4 million.  Highlights include a mid-13th century aquamanile (an implement for washing hands at the table)  in the shape of a leopard; a plaque identified as a missing section of the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne; a c1400  chesspiece representing a Queen; a fragmentary diptych with Scenes from the Life of Christ produced in Germany in the late 14th century; a French Gothic ivory known as the Sulzbach Virgin and Child from the 14th century and a partially glazed and polychromed terracotta of Christ the Redeemer, attributed to Giovanni della Robbia.

This French Gothic ivory known as the Sulzbach Virgin and Child is estimated at £300,000-500,000. (Click on image to enlarge).

Christ the Redeemer attributed to Giovanni della Robbia is estimated at £70,000-100,000. (Click on image to enlarge).

Francis Bacon’s Study for Self Portrait at Sotheby’s. (Click to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE £4,521,250.

London’s exciting contemporary art sales season which gets underway later this month could be a record breaker.  If the trend apparent already this year continues estimates will be smashed, records will be broken and sales will be in multiples of millions. Sotheby’s expect that their evening sale on June 26  – headed by Francis Bacon’s 1980 work, Study for Self Portrait – will bring in more than £50 million.  The Bacon study, in which the artist aged 71 looks back at himself as a young man. It is estimated at  £5-7 million.

Other highlights include Jean Michel Basquiat’s Warrior, 1982 with a similar estimate to the Bacon, Girl in a Mirror by Roy Lichtenstein estimated at £2.5-3.5 million and Gerhard Richter’s Untitled estimated at £2.5-3.5 million.

With works by Basquiat, Bacon and Yves Klein all expected to make over £10 million Christie’s anticipates that their contemporary art sale on June 27 will bring in more than £120 million.

Girl in a Mirror by Roy Lichtenstein at Sotheby’s.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £2,393,250.

Untitled by Gerhard Richter at Sotheby’s.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £2,841,250.

Jean Michel Basquiat’s Warrior at Sotheby’s. (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: THIS MADE £5,585,250.

Ida Reading a Letter by Vilhelm Hammershøi. (Click on image to enlarge).

THERE was a record for any Danish work of art at auction at Sotheby’s when Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Ida Reading a Letter sold for £1,721,250.  It was hotly pursued by three bidders on the telephone before being knocked down to an international private collector. The price surpassed an estimate of £500,000-700,000 and was almost three times above the previous record. Ida Reading a Letter was one of five paintings by Vilhelm Hammershøi in the sale of European Paintings.  His work made a combined total of £4,313,450 in a sale which brought an overall total of £6,527,475.

Claude Piening, of Sotheby’s European Paintings department, said: “Bidding was international, with interest from Asia, America, Scandinavia and Central Europe. Hammershøi appeals to the tastes of the 21st-century collector. Exhibitions in London, Tokyo, Denmark and currently Munich continue to attract new admirers of his work, which draws parallels with Vermeer and Whistler, artists with similar sensibilities.”

Ruth Bromberg Seated (1992). Click on image to enlarge.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £541,250.

Ruth Bromberg Seated (1997). Click on image to enlarge.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £421,250.

THE single most important group of paintings by Frank Auerbach ever to appear at auction comes up at Sotheby’s contemporary art sale in London on June 26. A collection of eight paintings of Ruth Bromberg painted over a 17 year period (1992-2008) will be sold by the executor of the estate of Ruth and Joseph Bromberg as a bequest to the British Friends of the Art Museums of Israel.  Proceeds will benefit the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in memory of their son Michael.

Born in 1931 Auerbach is considered one of Britain’s greatest living artists. He endlessly scrutinised and reworked his portraits. These particular ones tell the story of the friendship between the artist and one of his key sitters. Despite sitting for the artist every Thursday afternoon for nearly two decades Ruth Bromberg is the subject of  just 20 works.

The Brombergs were dedicated supporters of the of the School of London artists. The group includes an etching by Lucian Freud of his daughter Bella and is expected to realise £1.8 million.

UPDATE:  THE group of eight portraits by Frank Auerbach and one work by Lucian Freud was fiercely contested and brought a combined total of £2,476,000.  The auction overall realised  £69.3 million.

Renoir’s Baigneuse at Christie’s.  UPDATE: THIS WAS SOLD PRIVATELY BEFORE THE AUCTION FOR A PRICE THAT WAS WITHIN THE ESTIMATE.

Renoir’s Baigneuse leads Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London on June 20.  Painted in 1888 Baigneuse is a sumptuous exploration of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841-1919) most celebrated theme, the female nude. It is estimated at £12-18 million.

On the market for the first time in 15 years Baigneuse has been part of distinguished collections including Robert de Bonnières, Adrien Hébrard and the Prince de Wagram. It was later owned by the prominent Swiss collector Georg Reinhart. The painting set the record for a nude by the artist when it sold for $20.9 million in New York.

There are work by Picasso, Magritte, Gauguin, Picasso and a distinguished private collection of 14 bronze sculptures by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) with estimates from £15,000 to £2.5 million. The auction of 71 lots has a pre-sale estimate of £86.5-126.7 million.

UPDATE:  Renoir’s Baigneuse was sold privately before the auction for a price that was within the estimate.  The auction brought in £92.5 million with 27 works selling for over £1 million and 36 selling for over $1 million. The top price was paid for Femme assise, 1949, by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) which sold for £8,553,250.

Gerard Dillon's The Moon over the Bog made £61,250. (Click on image to enlarge).

Gerard Dillon’s The Moon over the Bog made £61,250 at Bonham’s sale of British and Irish art in London on May 30.  The same price was achieved by Sir Wiliam Scott’s Fish.  Paul Henry’s A View of Croagh Patrick from Achill Island made £25,000.  Sutton Sands by William John Leech made £8,750, Persian of the Circus by Jack Yeats made £7,500 and William Conor’s The Turf Carriers sold for £5,000.  Sir Gerald Festus Kelly’s Portrait of Jane with a white shawl XXVII, depicting the artist’s wife Lilian Ryan sold for £9,030.

Sean Keating’s Portrait of Jimmy O’Dea in Costume estimated at £10,000-15,000 failed to sell, as did Dillon’s Little Boy playing at God and Dan O’Neill’s Princess for a Night. The top lot of the sale was St. Ives Rooftops by Ben Nicholson which made £283,250.

Interior of a Cafe by William John Leech was the top lot at Adams.

AN  outstanding 1908 Breton work by William John Leech topped the Irish art poll at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 30  On the eve of a referendum on the EU financial stability treaty it made 200,000.  Indoors, Outdoors from 1951 by Louis le Brocquy, which had been estimated at 500,000-800,000, was bid up to 450,000 and failed to sell.

The auction of 148 lots was 75 per cent sold and brought in 1.7 million.  Good Evening Men by Jack b. Yeats made 180,000 and Bound for the Islands by the same artist made 48,000.  Fishing Boats, Dugort by Paul Henry sold for 125,000 and a le Brocquy tapestry, Eden, made 36,000.  Woman of Belfast by F.E. McWilliam made 27,000 over an estimate of 6,000-10,000, William Guy Wall’s View of the Boyne made 26,000 and Patrick Leonard’s Unloading the Catch, Loughshinny Harbour, made 25,000.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for  May 27, May 6 and May 8.

The Lock by John Constable (1776-1837), courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2012. (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: IT MADE £22,441,250.

A celebrated Constable masterpiece is expected to realise more than £20 million at Christie’s sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London on July 3.  The Lock by John Constable (1776-1837) is one of six paintings that make up the artist’s most celebrated series of large scale works which also includes The Hay Wain, now in The National Gallery, London.  From the private collection of  Baroness Carmen Thyssen Bornemisza it is the last to remain in private hands.  Sold only once since it was acquired from the artist it became the most valuable British painting ever sold when bought at auction for £10.8 million in 1990. It was originally owned by the celebrated collector James Morrison (1789-1857) and remained in the Morrison family until sold in 1990.

The Lock was finished in 1824, one of the most significant years in Constable’s career, which saw The Hay Wain exhibited at the Paris Salon and King Charles X of France award him a gold medal. Constable’s success in France has been seen by many art historians as having significantly influenced the course of the history of art; his intense observation of nature inspired French artists in a movement of landscape painting that would find its fullest expression half-a-century later in the work of the Impressionists.

Jussi Pylkkänen, President of Christie’s Europe, Middle East, Russia and India anticipates that it will attract bidding from museums and collectors from all over the world.  It is estimated at £20-25 million.

UPDATE: IT MADE £22,441,250.