THE GUTTMANN MOUSE HELMET AN IMPORTANT ROMAN IRON, BRASS AND COPPER HELMET FOR JULIUS MANSUETUS, together with A DOLABRA ANTONINE PERIOD, CIRCA 125-175 A.D. Estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $1,260,000
The Guttmann Mouse Helmet, an important Roman iron, brass and copper helmet with a punched inscription for the helmet’s original owner, Julius Mansuetus, is the top lot at Christie’s Arms and Armour from the Mougins Museum of Classical Art Part I sale in New York on January 30. It is estimated at $1,000,000-1,500,000. Additional top lots include a Greek bronze Corinthian helmet ($300,000-500,000), a Roman iron and tinned bronze cavalry helmet ($300,000-500,000), a Roman sheet brass helmet of Weisenau type ($250,000-350,000), and the Thétis Fragment, a fragmentary Greek bronze inscribed back-plate from an anatomical cuirass ($150,000-250,000).
The sale will offer around 40 lots from the museum’s unparalleled collection of ancient arms and armour from across the Mediterranean world — the largest private collection of its kind. It is the second chapter of a collecting odyssey offered across six sales from December 2023 to December 2024. The works of art, spanning antiquities to contemporary sculptures, have been the nucleus of the South of France museum since its foundation by Christian Levett in 2011. The Mougins Museum of Classical Art closed its doors to the public last August and will reopen in June 2024 as Female Artists Mougins Museum, dedicated solely to works by female artists from The Levett Collection.
Keith Haring (1958-1990) – Untitled (Feb 2, 1987)($220,000-320,000) courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd. 2023. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $227,200
In New York Christie’s will hold an online auction of five unique digital drawings by Keith Haring created on an Amiga computer in the mid-1980’s in an online sale from September 12-20. Keith Haring: Pixel Pioneer focuses on an artist who blended historically disparate cultures; he was highly celebrated for his achievements in public artwork while simultaneously a massively successful figure in the gallery world. A natural extension of his legacy for his art is to continue to bridge today’s artistic cultures – fusing the physical art world with the world of Web3.
Keith Haring was an early admirer and adopter of the digital age, even depicting the first Apple Macintosh computer in his work. In keeping with his signature style of bold lines and pop color, Haring’s Amiga drawings show the artist’s early interest and involvement in the medium, which has since become pervasive in commercial design and 21st-century digital art. To accurately preserve the natively digital material created on a now-vintage computer system, the Keith Haring Foundation has minted these five Amiga artworks — previously only viewable via floppy disks — on the Ethereum blockchain. For the first time, these unique digital drawings can now be collected, exhibited, and even printed.
EXTENSIVE COMPOSITE SEVRES PORCELAIN GREEN-GROUND PART DINNER AND DESSERT SERVICE. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $226,800
Rothschild Masterpieces at Christie’s in New York next October will include a magnificent selection of 600 lots of decorative and fine art. The first ever North American sales of objects from one of the great collecting families in history comprises objects assembled in France by two generations of Rothschilds mostly during the latter half of the 19th century. Highlights include The Triumph of David, a set of Dutch School painted and embossed leather panels laid down on canvas, a third quarter of the 16th century Limoges enamel charger, a Dutch silver gilt mounted nautilus cup (Delft 1607) and an Italian 16th century oval armorial dish. They were purchased by Baron James and his wife Betty and Baron Alphonse and his wife Leonora for their palatial Chateau de Ferrieres outside Paris (it opened in 1862 with a gala attended by Napoleon III) and for their houses in the city. The chateau was donated to France in 1975. The total estimate for this selection of furniture, enamels, maiolica, Renaissance jewels, silver and paintings is in excess of $20 million (€18.24 million). There is to be an evening sale at the Rockefeller Center on October 11, two days sales on October 12 and 13 and an online sale. UPDATE: THE ROTHSCHILD MASTERPIECES EVENING SALE REALISED $43,237,900
UPDATE: THE Rothschild auction series brought in $62.6 million. The four sales averaged 280 percent sold hammer above low estimate, and 98 percent sold by lot. Millennial buyers accounted for an average of 15 percent of bidders and buyers across the week, and bidders and buyers from 40 nations participated.
THE 20th Century evening sale and the sale of the Cox Collection achieved a total of $751.9 million at Christie’s in New York last night. The Cox Collection made $332,031,500and was 100% sold, selling 160% against low estimate and 91% lots sold above high estimate. The 20th Century Evening Sale totaled $419,866,500, selling 92% by lot 96% by value, 113% sold against low estimate.
The Cox Collection was highlighted by three works by Vincent van Gogh. The sale was headlined by van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece Cabanes de bois parmi les oliviers, which, after a five-minute battle between eleven bidders, sold for $71,350,000—the fourth highest price for the artist at auction—to a client in the room. The 1890 van Gogh oil painting Jeune homme au bleuet sold for $46,732,500 after nine and a half minutes of fierce and competitive bidding against a low estimate of $5,000,000. Van Gogh’s watercolor Meules de blé sold for $35,855,000 to a buyer in the room, setting a new record for a work on paper. Another exceptional price was achieved by Paul Cézanne’s L’Estaque aux toits rouges, which sold for $55,310,000 against a low estimate of $35,000,000. The Cox Collection sawglobal participation of bidders coming from 27 countries, with 52% sold by lot to the Americas, 35% to Europe and 13% to Asia.
Pablo Picasso – Mousquetaire à la Pipe sold for $34,710,000
The top lot at the 20th Century sale was Andy Warhol’s 1982 portrait of fellow artist Jean–MichelBasquiat from the collection of Peter Brant, which achieved $40,091,500. Notable results came from artworks spanning a multitude of genres, including Cy Twombly’s 1961 painting Untitled, which realised $32,000,000 and two Picasso paintings including Mousquetaire à la Pipe, which sold for $34,710,000—the highest price achieved for a work within Picasso’s Musketeer series—and 1955 portrait Femme accroupie en costume turc (Jacqueline) from the Stella Collection, which sold for $25,550,000.
The running total for Christie’s November marquee week of sales in New York stands at $971,176,750.
Nile Rodgers at Glastonbury, 2017. Photo credit: Jill Furmanovsky
More than 160 lots of vintage and storied guitars, iconic fashions, unique synthesizers, production equipment and rare cars from the collection of legendary and multiple GRAMMY-winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist Nile Rodgers will be sold by Christie’s in New York on December 16. His renowned productions for artists such as David Bowie, Diana Ross and Madonna have sold over 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide, while his trendsetting collaborations with Daft Punk, Avicii, Keith Urban, Disclosure, Sam Smith and Lady Gaga reflect the vanguard of contemporary music. Proceeds will benefit We Are Family Foundation, a non-profit organisation co-founded by Rodgers and Foundation President, Nancy Hunt, that promotes cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world.
This presentation copy of Dubliners signed by James Joyce is among the highlights of The Exceptional Literature Collection of Theodore B. Baum, to be sold in two parts at Christie’s in New York this month. It is estimated at $150,000-250,000. Inscribed copies of Dubliners are very rare and only three have been recorded at auction in the past 80 years. This one is the only example still in its original dust jacket. It is inscribed by Joyce to his publisher Crosby Gaige: “To Crosby Gaige James Joyce Paris 25.V.28.” This inscription dates to just five months after Gaige published Anna Livia Plurabelle, a section of Finnegans Wake, in a signed limited edition of 850 copies.
On November 28, 1905 Joyce mailed the manuscript of Dubliners to Grant Richards, who accepted it for publication in February 1906 and announced it the following month in The First Catalogue of Books Published by Grant Richards. In April, however, objections from the printer halted production. Joyce wrote an angry letter to Richards on 5 May: “You tell me in conclusion that I am endangering my future and your reputation. I have shown you earlier in the letter the frivolity of the printer’s objections and I do not see how the publication of Dubliners as it now stands in manuscript could possibly be considered an outrage on public morality…” (Herbert Gorman, James Joyce, pp.149). Although Joyce agreed to a few alterations, Richards soon abandoned his plans for Dubliners. Joyce offered the book to others, including Elkin Mathews and George Roberts at Maunsel. Maunsel printed an edition of 1,000 copies by July 1910 but this was destroyed by the printers because of objectionable passages. At the most, only a few sets of page proofs of this edition were retained by Joyce.
Joyce returned to Richards on 23 November 1914, committed to publishing the book as it was written, which by then had grown by two stories, “A Little Cloud” and “The Dead,” the masterpiece with which the collection concludes. Joyce guaranteed the sale of 130 copies in Trieste. Richards agreed, signed a contract on 4 March 1914 and published the book on 15 June. 1,250 sets of sheets were printed, of which approximately 746 were bound in this edition. The remaining 504 sets were sold by Huebsch in New York.
Mr. Baum’s library of literary first editions is among the finest ever assembled, built over the course of decades as he worked closely with top dealers and auction houses to locate the best copies of the most beloved books. The collection is particularly strong in works by English and American authors—from Edmund Spencer and John Milton in the 16th & 17th centuries through Jonathan Swift, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and Charles Dickens in the 18th & 19th centuries, all the way to Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison and more in the 20th century.
The live online sale is on September 14. Part II of the online auction runs from September 2-17.
UPDATE: The Exceptional Literature Collection of Theodore B. Baum, sold across two live and online sales, totalled $9,657,875, surpassing the pre-sale high estimate.
JEAN ROYÈRE (1902-1981) ‘OURS POLAIRE’ SOFA, CIRCA 1950 in ash, beech with velvet upholstery made $1,230,000. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2021
Three live sales of Design at Christie’s in New York totalled $17,436,000, including Paris in New York: A Private Collection of Royère, Vautrin, Jouve, Tiffany and Design. With very strong, spirited global cross-category bidding, these outstanding results demonstrated the strength and depth of the Design market. There was global participation with bidders from 28 countries across five continents. Hammer prices were 178% above the low estimate. The first dedicated various owner sale of works by Tiffany Studios held at Christie’s since 2014 brought in $3,903,375.
TIFFANY STUDIOS LANDSCAPE WINDOW WITH MAGNOLIAS, HYDRANGEAS AND AZALEAS, CIRCA 1915 made $1,470,000. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2021
Georges Seurat – Paysage et personnages (La jupe rose), 1884 ($7-10 million)
Two exceedingly rare studies for Georges Seurat’s masterpiece Un Dimanche d’été à l’Ile de La Grande Jatte will highlight Christie’s 20th Century livestreamed evening sale in New York on May 11. The two oil panels, being sold from the family of Boston collector Robert Treat Paine II, are among the few examples of Seurat’s extensive preparatory practice for this masterpiece to remain in private hands. More than half of the oil studies for La Grande Jatte are in the collections of prestigious museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the National Gallery of Art, London. Seurats Bathers at Asnières, 1884 has long been one of the most popular paintings in London’s National Gallery.
Both Seurat panels remained in the artist’s possession until his untimely death in 1890, at which point, Paysage et personnages(La jupe rose) was acquired shortly thereafter by a fellow artist, the Belgian painter Jean de Greef. The painting would pass through the collection of the Symbolist poet and art dealer Charles Vignier during the early twentieth century, before crossing the Atlantic in the mid-1920s. Similarly, Le Saint-Cyrien was gifted by the artist’s mother to the painter Henri-Edmond Cross, a close friend of Seurat. It subsequently passed to Félix Fénéon, the influential French art critic who coined the term Neo-Impressionism, before also making its way to the Americas, where it was reunited with Paysage et personnages(La jupe rose) in 1929.
Un Dimanche d’été à l’Ile de La Grande Jatte is in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.
A sensational diamond necklace suspending a pear-shaped diamond of 115.83 carats, F color, VVS1 clarity will lead Christie’s sale of magnificent jewels in New York on July 29. It is estimated at $5,000,000-7,000,000. Coloured diamonds also lead the sale, with a fancy intense blue diamond ring of 7.16 carats, internally flawless ($3,500,000-5,000,000); and a fancy intense yellow diamond ring of 33.65 carats, VS2 clarity ($525,000-625,000). Coloured gemstones are also strongly represented with a Burma sapphire ring of 42.45 carats ($350,000–550,000); Colombian emerald ring of 35.77 carats ($300,000-500,000); and superb Art Deco sapphire and diamond sautoir, by Bulgari ($650,000–850,000).
The Jewels Online sale which runs from July 22 to August 6/7 features a broad selection of fine jewels and iconic designs by Bulgari, Cartier, David Webb, Tiffany & Co., and Van Cleef & Arpels.
A SENSATIONAL DIAMOND NECKLACE WITH PENDANT OF 115.83 CARATS, F COLOR, VVS1 CLARITY. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $6,290,500
Iconic jewels from leading houses feature at Christie’s New York jewels online sale from April 13-24. The sale features work from Boucheron, Bulgari, Cartier, David Webb, Graff, Tiffany, Van Cleef and Arpels and Verdura. More than 160 lots are on offer with bidding starting at below $2,000. The catalogue is online.
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS MALACHITE AND GOLD ‘VINTAGE ALHAMBRA’ NECKLACE ($6,000-8,000)
