One of the most significant collections of Chinese export porcelain in the world, the Tibor Collection, will come up in a sales series at Christie’s this year. It begins with a single owner sale on April 10 in New York and continues with top pieces in The Exceptional Sale in New York, London and Paris. Comprising more than 500 pieces the collection – which ranges from late Ming blue and white to 18th century armorial and European subject wares – is expected to exceed $6 million.
A RARE PAIR OF SOUP TUREENS, COVERS AND STANDS QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795) ($100,000-150,000)A PAIR OF HISPANIC MARKET VERTE-IMARI JARS AND COVERS KANGXI PERIOD (1662-1722) ($80,000-120,000) UPDATE: THIS WAS THE TOP LOT OF THE SINGLE OWNER SALE AND MADE $106,250
A themed sale dedicated to the Tianminlou Collection will highlight the Chinese Works of Art Spring Sale series at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on April 3. Sotheby’s Asia chairman Nicholas Chow said: “We are honoured to be entrusted with a fine selection of the Hong Kong-based Tianminlou collection, which boasts one of the best private blue and white porcelain assemblages in the world. The dedicated sale consists of a carefully selected group of eighteen pieces of Ming and Qing porcelains and is the first time treasures from the collection are offered in the market.”
Other sales include Scholarly and Imperial works of art from a distinguished collection, predominantly from the late Ming to the Qianlong period. The Robert Younghman Collection of Chinese Jade II, Fine Imperial Porcelain from a private collection and Important Chinese Art. Here is a small selection:
BLUE AND WHITE ‘LOTUS’ BASIN MING DYNASTY, YONGLE PERIODARGE YELLOW JADE ANIMAL-SHAPED PLAQUE
EASTERN ZHOU DYNASTY
An exciting discovery of around 40 drawings and watercolours by Daniel Macdonald (1821-1853) will be exhibited at the Gorry Gallery in Dublin from March 28. They give a visual insight into life and society in Cork in the early 1840’s and demonstrate his empathy for the rural people of Ireland. Daniel Macdonald’s impressive graphic skills are demonstrated in images like Blindman’s Buff, Irish Jig-house, Apple Bobbing and The Day after the Fair. According to the catalogue note by Professor Niamh O’Sullivan, author of In the Lion’s Den: Daniel MacDonald, Ireland and Empire: “His crowd scenes are replete with detail, abound with energy and scintillate with wit, and the articulation of character and narrative is compelling”. A number of the drawings were executed on board the yacht Hebe in Cobh and date to 1843-44, just prior to his departure for London. His 1847 painting of An Irish Peasant Family discovering the Blight in their Store, shown at the British Institution, had the distinction until recently of being the only Irish painting that directly confronted the famine. “His paintings are without precedence, not only in the Irish and British canon, but in French art then considered the most radical of all”, Niamh O’Sullivan notes.
The collection of Drue Heinz will be offered at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern evening and day sales in New York in May. Leading the collection is Amedeo Modigliani’s Lunia Czechowska (à la robe noire), 1919 ($12-18 million). Modigliani was infatuated with his subject, a young Polish émigré, who was married to a close friend of the artist’s dealer, Léopold Zborowski, and would ultimately go on to paint her likeness in ten known paintings.
Amedeo Modigliani, Lunia Czechowska (à la robe noire)
Henri Matisse painted Nu à la fenêtre ($7-10 million) – also known as Nu nacré (Pearly Nude) for the iridescent quality of its light—in his new studio during the first part of 1929 and sold the canvas to Bernheim-Jeune that September. The painting was reproduced shortly thereafter in two important monographs, one by Florent Fels and the other by Roger Fry. Pierre Bonnard’s La Terrasse ou Une terrasse à Grasse, 1912 ($6-9 million) is a pageant of high-keyed color and luxuriant, Mediterranean vegetation.
Heinz was married to H.J. (Jack) Heinz II – CEO of the H. J. Heinz Company – from 1953 until his death in 1987, and she made most of her acquisitions over the course of their three decades of marriage.
The contents of Mrs. Heinz’s London mews house and Manhattan townhouse will be offered in London on June 4. The London mews was purchased by Mr. & Mrs. Heinz in the late 1950s and is particularly special as it has at its core one of the most charming and untouched John Fowler interiors remaining, with a second phase of development and decoration in the 1980s by Renzo Mongiardino.
The top lot of the sale is from the London property, a massive George II giltwood pier mirror, circa 1750, in the manner of Vardy (£150,000 –250,000). Further highlights from London include Swimming Pool by David Hockney. Notable lots from New York include a Regency specimen marble bronzed and parcel-gilt centre table circa 1810 (£15,000-25,000) and a pair of Chinese Export black and gilt-lacquer wardrobes.
La Jeunesse de Bacchus, the largest work of William Bouguereau’s career and an icon of French academic painting, will highlight Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art sales in New York on May 14. The monumental canvas stands 20 feet in length and 11 feet in height. It has been in Bouguereau’s studio in Paris since it was completed in 1884 – the culmination of two years of work. It has left the studio only three times; when initially presented at the Salon in 1884, followed by exhibitions in London and Antwerp through 1885, for the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889, and as part of a retrospective touring the Musée du Petit-Palais in Paris, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in 1984-85.
On offer this spring by the direct descendants of the artist, La Jeunesse de Bacchus will carry an estimate of $25/35 million. Here is a video about the work.
A total of 250 lots will come under the hammer at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current sale of Irish art online. The auction includes work by Hughie O’Donoghue, Mark O’Neill, Louis le Brocquy, Sean McSweeney, Cecil Maguire, Arthur Maderson and others. The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:
Joe Murray (20th/21st Century) David Bowie set of 3 life cast masks This is an actual life cast taken from David Bowie’s face by makeup artist Dick Smith during the production of the 1983 movie ‘The Hunger’, David Bowie was 36 at this time UPDATE: THESE MADE 1,400 AT HAMMER
Louis Le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) Flower Seller Christmas Eve, Ann Street, Dublin 1944 UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,000 AT HAMMER
Hughie O’Donoghue RA (b.1953) Fiume (Head) (2004) UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Arthur K. Maderson (b.1942) Grey Cloud Over Blackwater Valley UPDATE: THIS MADE 4,600 AT HAMMER
David Hockney – Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott.
David Hockney’s double portrait of Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott sold for £37,661.250 at Christie’s in London tonight. The portrait features Hockney’s close friend HenryGeldzahler, legendary curator, critic and king of the New York art world, and his then boyfriend Christopher Scott. David Hockney became the world’s most expensive living artist last November when his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with two figures) sold for $90.3 million at Christie’s in New York. The 1969 double portrait of Geldzahler and Scott is one of seven double portraits, including the pool with two figures. The acrylic on canvas captures Geldzahler at a time when he was organising the most revolutionary exhibition of his career, New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
There was world auction records for Jordan Casteel whose Patrick and Omari from 2015 made £299,250; for Jonathan Yeo, whose 2013 painting Claire’s Room (Grayson Perry) made £125,000; and for Barry Flanagan, whose Nijinski Hare was acquired for £1,451,250.
The Post War and Contemporary Art evening sale totalled £79,282,000 and was 93% sold by lot and 94% by value.
Francis Bacon – Study for Portrait. Signed, titled and dated 1981 on the reverse ($12-18 MILLION)
Francis Bacon’s Study for Portrait – the last of the artist’s famed portraits of his lover and muse George Dyer – is to come up at Sotheby’s in New York. It is among the highlights from the Gerald L. Lennard Foundation Collection at the May marquee auctions of Contemporary and Impressionist & Modern Art. Other works include Willem de Kooning’s Untitled X from the group of works created in 1975 that marked the artist’s transition from a period of radical experimentation to the lush abstracts which are among his most celebrated and sought after works today; the most comprehensive group of late works by Philip Guston ever to appear at auction, including Legs, Rug, Floor from 1976 andRed Sky from 1978; and signature portraits by Frank Auerbarch depicting his wife Julia Wolstenhome and his friend Catherine Lampert.
The Gerald L. Lennard Foundation’s interests include helping to promote programs involving visual and performing arts, healthcare, education and environmental sustainability. Proceeds from the sale of the 37 works presented will help to benefit the Foundation’s mission now and in the future.
Philip Guston Legs, Rug, Floor Signed, titled, and dated 1976 on the reverse ($6-8 MILLION)
Willem de Kooning Untitled X Executed in 1975 ($8-12 MILLION)
Lucian Freud – Head of a Boy 1956. UPDATE: THIS MADE £5.8 MILLION
The Contemporary Art evening sale at Sotheby’s in London tonight brought in £93.2 million. Lucian Freud’s 1956 Head of a Boy, a portrait of Guinness heir Garech Browne, made £5.8 million. It achieved the highest price for a work by the artist from the 1950s. The painting is fresh to the market, having remained in the collection of the Irish cultural patron the Hon. Garech Browne since its execution.
Apex by Jean Michel Basquiat made £8.2 million and Juncture by Jenny Saville made £5.7 million. This represented an increase of over 1000% on the £457,250 achieved by this work a decade ago.
The sale of 66 lots was 91% sold by lot and saw five works make over £5 million. There were auction records for Adam Pendleton, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Rebecca Warren, and for a sculpture by Martin Kippenberger.
