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Claude Monet Le Palais Contarini (£15-20 million). (Click on image to enlarge).

Monet’s 1908 view of Venice, Le Palais Contarini, sold for £19,682,500 at Sotheby’s in London tonight.  This is the highest price ever for a Venetian painting by the artist. The work was completed while Monet and his wife spent three months in Venice.  It has been widely exhibited around the world and was in the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibition at Tate Britain in 2005.

Moments before Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1927) sold for £9,266,500. Five bidders competed for the work, which was eventually knocked down to a bidder on the telephone.

The Monet was the top lot in an auction which brought in £105,939,000, just exceeding the high pre-sale estimate of £104 million.  Bidders from 33 countries competed on the telephones, in the saleroom and online. The auction was 81.7% sold by lot.

(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for June 6 and May 31, 2013).

Studie zu Improvisation 3 by Wassily Kandinsky is estimated at £12.18 million. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2013 

Wassily Kandinsy’s Expressionist masterpiece Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909 was the top lot at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art in London on June 18.  It made £13,501, 875 in a sale with an overall total of £64,076,575 over a pre-sale estimate of £52.8-75.8 million. The auction was 84% sold by lot and 87% by value and 18 works sold for over £1 million. Modigliani’s 1916 portrait of his dealer Paul Guillaume made £6,781,875. Picasso’s Femme Assise dans un fauteuil made £6,109,875 and Paul Signac’s Sainte Anne (St. Tropez) sold for £3,533,875.

Jay Vincze, head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s London said:  “This evening’s auction saw solid results and the continuing strength of selling rates in the category at Christie’s in 2013. There was great depth of bidding on works of high quality at all price levels, with strong participation from many new and existing collectors from both traditional and growth markets, including Greater China and India. The global appeal and accessibility of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s was further highlighted by the auction of ‘Picasso Ceramics’ at South Kensington which was 100% sold by lot and also attracted new bidders from around the world.”

Thomas Roberts (Waterford 1748 – 1778 Lisbon) – A LANDSTORM; A MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELLERS ON A BRIDGE (£80,000-120,000).

A previously unrecorded painting by the Waterford artist Thomas Roberts (1748-1778) comes up at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London on July 4.  A Landstorm; A Mountainous Landscape with Travellers on a Bridge is from an American private collection.

In style the work belongs to a group of large scale paintings which the artist painted around 1774-5.  The theme is in two paintings commissioned by Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn for his London mansion at St. James’s Square designed by Robert Adam and considered to be one of the grandest houses in London.

Another version of this composition is at Fota House in Co. Cork.

Masterpieces of 20th century sculpture will feature at Christie’s Modern British Art evening sale on July 10 in London.  The 37 lots on offer feature artists as diverse as L.S. Lowry, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon and Barbara Hepworth.  The auction will be followed by the Modern British and Irish art day sale at South Kensington on July 11. The sale will feature work from the collection of pioneering dealer Tony Reichardt.  Artists represented include R.B. Kitaj, R.A. (1932-2007), Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A. (1924-2005), Victor Pasmore, R.A. (1908-1998) and Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003).  Sitting Couple by Chadwick is taken from a piece he created for the 1998 Venice Biennale.   Two figures sit apart, but appear to lean slightly towards each other.  Chadwick  understood body language to have a far greater power in conveying mood and character than facial features, which he felt to be limiting, hence the faces are blanked. The piece is estimated at £1-1.5 million.

Curved Form (Bryher II), 1961, belongs to Barbara Hepworth’s Single Form series. Estimated at £1 million  – 1.5 million it is from the collection of the late Leopold de Rothschild.  The series became  associated with Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary General who tragically died in 1961, and his relationship with Hepworth. Hammarskjöld wanted Hepworth to execute a scheme for the new United Nations building in New York. Curved Form (Bryher II), was as far  as they had got. Thus, in 1961, when the United Nations commissioned Hepworth to make a sculpture in his memory, she began with Curved Form (Bryher II) and in 1964 she delivered her largest ever sculpture, Single Form, to the United Nations.

Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003) Sitting Couple (£1-1.5 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013.  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Curved Form (Bryher II) (£1-1.5 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013.  UPDATE: This made £2,413,875, a world record for the artist at auction.

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)
Industrial Landscape (£800,000-£1.2 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013. UPDATE: THIS MADE £935,475.

Summer 2013 will see a major retrospective of L.S. Lowry’s work opening at Tate Britain, London. There are seven works by the Manchester artist including Industrial Landscape  (£800,000 – 1,200,000) in Christie’s sale. (Click on any image to enlarge it).

Francis Bacon Head III, 1949 (£5-7 million). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT MADE £10,442,500.

The first work Francis Bacon ever sold, from the legendary first commercial show at the Hanover Gallery in Mayfair in 1949, comes up at Sotheby’s in London on June 26.  Head III 1949 is now estimated at £5-7 million. In 1949 it cost £150.  Bacon’s three studies of Isabel Rawsthorne dating from 1966 are estimated at £10-15 million.  The sale of 69 works with a combined estimate of more than £66 million features a strong selection of Post-War European masters and major British names.  

Highlights include David Hockney’s paean to his home country, Double East Yorkshire and Bridget Riley’s powerful op art masterpiece of 1964, Stretch. The cover lot of the auction is the most important collection of Andreas Gursky “Stock Exchange” photographs in private or public hands, part of his iconic series of trading floor studies.

UPDATE:  The auction realized £75.8 million, with an average lot value of £1.43 million – one of the highest figures for this category in London. Francis Bacon’s 1966 triptych portrait of his friend, muse and lover Isabel Rawsthorne sold for £11,282,500.