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Alberto Giacometti’s Chariot is estimated to achieve more than $100 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York on November 4.  It is considered to be the masterwork of his career and a seminal achievement of modern art.  The bronze depicts  a goddess frozen in motion on her large wheeled chariot.  It was conceived in 1950 and cast in 1951-52. This example, set apart by its gold patina, is one of the only two casts in private hands and is the first Chariot to appear at auction in 30 years. Six casts of the piece, which has its origins in Surrealism, were made during his lifetime.

The sale will feature the finest still life by Van Gogh to appear on the market in decades.  Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies is estimated at $30-50 million.  Amadeo Modigliani’s Tete is estimated to make more than $45 million.  Exhibited at the Paris Salon d’Automne in 1912 it has never before been offered at auction. It was quarried from a single block of limestone. Modigliani found these on construction sites around Paris – including work on the Paris Metro. He carted them back by wheelbarrow to his studio in Montparnasse.

Alberto Giacometti – Chariot.  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $101 MILLION.

Amadeo Modigliani – Tete  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $70.7 MILLION

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 29, 2014)

Composition néo-plastique by Dutch artist César Domela (£400,000-600,000).  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

Modern art from countries across Europe and around the Mediterranean by artists who are not yet part of the international  mainstream will feature at Sotheby’s in London on November 12. The auction, entitled 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective, is lead by a group of works by artists who were at the fore of the intellectual avant-garde in Europe between the First and Second World Wars.  Their principal occupation was the exploration of non-figurative art and in the pursuit of art’s highest form of purity they decreed that painting must be abstract. The auction, comprising 74 lots, also features a strong selection of early twentieth-century figurative works by artists who had assimilated the tenets of impressionist and cubist painting.

The auction is scheduled to become an annual feature on Sotheby’s calendar focusing on artworks from the 1920’s to the 1960’s with a special focus on cubism, abstraction, constructivism and other works by members of the Bauhaus, Der Sturm, de Stijl and Osma.

UPDATE:  THE SALE TOTAL WAS £1,863,313 IN AN AUCTION  WHICH WAS 81.1% SOLD BY LOT.

A combined total of 407 works, including art by de Vlaminck, Pissarro and Modigliani, will be offered across Christie’s Day, Works on Paper and Picasso ceramics  sales in New York on November 6.  Paintings, sculptures, watercolours and drawings by some of the most acclaimed artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries will be featured.  Here is a small selection:

MAURICE DE VLAMINCK, Bouquet de fleurs (1905-06), $700,000 – 1,000,00, Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

CAMILLE PISSARRO, L’Anse des Pilotes et le Brise-Lames Est, Le Havre (1903), $1,000,000-1,500,000 Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI, Cariatide (1913), $120,000 – 180,000 Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

Art by Josef Albers, Jean Dubuffet, Franz Kline and Arnulf Rainer from the estate of Maximilian Schell will come up at Christie’s in Amsterdam, London and Paris.  The newly deceased Oscar winning Austrian actor, director, writer and producer Maximilian Schell was dedicated to the arts throughout his life.  As a collector he avoided the fashionable in search of the timeless. Christie’s will offer the 45 works from the Maximilian Schell Estate across five sales during November and December 2014 in Amsterdam, London and Paris. The main part will be included in Christie’s Amsterdam Post-War and Contemporary Art evening and day sales on  November 4 and 5, further works will be offered in the Amsterdam sales Old Masters and 19th Century Art – including Dutch impressionism on November 26 and Modern Art on December 16. Christie’s will auction two autographs from the Schell Estate in its November 25 sale of Books and Manuscripts and wo works in the Tribal Art sale on December 11 in Paris.

Dubuffet  Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

Kline  Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

Albers  Courtesy Christies Images Ltd., 2014

Maximilian Schell in front of a picture of his most intimate film, My Sister Maria, 2002.Copyright Prounenfilm.