Sixteen Jackies by Andy Warhol at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $25.9 MILLION
The 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy this month is recalled through Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series in New York next week. Sixteen Jackies will lead Christie’s 20th century evening sale next Thursday (November 9). The 1964 painting, a grid of a repeated press image of First Lady Jackie Kennedy during her husband’s funeral procession is estimated at $25 – $35 million and is one of many highlights in the sales. Led by the Emily Fisher Landau collection of key masterwork examples sales at Sotheby’s showcase over a century of artistic production. There are seminal works by Picasso, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol. This collection comes under the hammer at Sotheby’s next Wednesday and Thursday (November 8 and 9), followed by the Modern evening auction on November 13 and Now and Contemporary art sales on November 15. At Christie’s the 21st Century evening sale is next Tuesday the 20th century sale is on Thursday, the Post War and Contemporary day sale is on November 10 and the Impressionist and Modern day sale takes place on November 11.
Untitled XV 1983 by Willem de Kooning at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $8.6 MILLION
Francois Xavier-Lalanne (1927-2008) – Rhinocrétaire I sold for €18,335,000
Francois Xavier-Lalanne’s unique 1964 piece Rhinocrétaire I made €18,335,000 at a dedicated stand alone single lot auction at Christie’s in Paris today. This is a new world record for Lalanne. His first major sculpture had been estimated at €4-€6 million. Rhinocrétaire I first appeared at Jeanine Restany’s trailblazing Galerie J in the artist’s debut joint exhibition with his wife Claude Lalanne. A functional, metamorphic work, Rhinocrétaire I is at once a bar, an illuminated writing desk, and a seminal early sculpture that foreshadows the poetic exuberance and preternatural inventions that defined the artist’s work for the next forty-four years. Exhibited only one other time, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2010, Rhinocrétaire I has remained in the private collection of the same French family since the 1964 Galerie J. exhibition.
A PAIR OF LATE LOUIS XV GILTWOOD AND WHITE-PAINTED FAUTEUILS – Price Realized: $6,221,000 Louis Delanois, Joseph-Nicolas Guichard, Jean-Baptiste Cagny, supplied to Madame Du Barry for Château De Louveciennes, Circa 1770-1771
The landmark Rothschild auction series at Christie’s in New York totalled $62,656,516. There was strong demand for decorative arts of all categories and price levels, and underscoring the enduring power of the Rothschild provenance on both sides of the Atlantic. 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. Christie’s broke the record for European 18th century seat furniture and then broke that record in the very same sale. Records were also set for Hispano-Moresque and Bernard Palissy earthenware as well as for 17th century flatware.
The series began with a sale of masterpieces. The leading lot was Gerrit Dou’s A young woman holding a hare with a boy at the window which made $7 million. A pair of late Louis XV gilt walnut fauteuils a la reine by the 18th-century French furniture maker Louis Delanoisset the record for 18th century European chairs making $4,406,00, and then shortly after that this record was broken again by a Delanois pair of late Louis XV giltwood and white-painted fauteuils, supplied to Madame Du Barry for her Château De Louveciennes, Circa 1770-1771, which made $6,221,000, the second-highest price ever for European chairs of any era.
This 2004 work by Cy Twombly comes up as a highlight at Christie’s 21st century evening sale in New York on November 7. The work comes from the artist’s celebrated Bacchus series which stands as a culmination of Twombly’s fifty years of painterly practice. The iconic looping theme had been integral to his body of work since the meandering scrawl of his 1960s Blackboard paintings. The character of Bacchus (or Dionysus in Greek), god of revelry and wine, is a notable presence, employed repeatedly throughout Twombly’s career. The character is first referenced in his 1975 collage Dionysus, then again in a 1977 series on the theme of Bacchanalia, and once more in a 1981 triptych Bacchus.
The 2003 – 2008 Bacchus series is broken into three distinct sets. Untitled (Bacchus 1st Version II) comes from the first and is one of six portrait-format paintings Twombly completed in 2004, not exhibited until 2008 at the Red October Chocolate Factory in Moscow. This set includes the only works with text. Four, including the present example, are inscribed with ‘Psilax’ translating to “the Giver of Wings” a surname attributed to Dionysus. This work is estimated at $18. – $25 million.
Sixteen Jackies by Andy Warhol will be featured as a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale inn New York on November 9. This 1964 painting depicts a 4×4 grid of a repeated press image of First Lady Jackie Kennedy taken during her husband’s funeral procession. The work will come to auction a week and a half shy of the day marking the 60th year anniversary of JFK’s death. A seminal work by the 20th century icon, Sixteen Jackies sits at the pinnacle of the group of artworks that became known as his Death and Disaster paintings. It is estimated at $25 million – $35 million.
FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954) – Portrait of Cristina, My Sister (1928)
This Frida Kahlo portrait is from the collection of Jerry Moss, the M and A&M Records. Thirteen works from his collection will be showcased in a single-owner section of Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York on November 9. Jerry Moss was a music industry giant who played a critical role in establishing careers of the biggest musical acts in history—Sting, Janet Jackson, Peter Frampton, Cat Stevens, Carole King, and countless more. Moss’s art collection comprises a fantastic group of objects that span a range of genres, representing the European avant-garde, icons of Latin American art, and contemporary masters.
Highlights include: Friday Kahlo’s Portrait of Cristina, My Sister ($8 million – 12 million) and Tamara de Lempicka’s Fillette en rose ($7 million – 10 million) two deeply personal portraits by women of their immediate family members—the first, of the artist’s sister and the second of the artist’s daughter. The top lot of the group is Picasso’s Nu couché, estimated to achieve $10 million – 15 million. Subsequent property from the collection will be sold in the Marquee Week day sales and the Design sales in December. In total, the collection is estimated to realise in excess of $50 million, with partial proceeds to benefit The Music Center.
Bleu Royal, the largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond ever seen at auction will come up at Christie’s in Geneva on November 7. Fancy vivid blue diamonds of over 10 carats are practically unheard of in the saleroom. Only three have come up in more than 250 years at Christie’s. This 17.61 carat pear shaped stone combines a rich colour and flawless purity. In the same collection for the past 50 years it remains among the rarest to have been unearthed. Prices for top quality coloured diamonds have increased exponentially in recent years. The estimate is $35 million – $50 million (€32.8 million – €46.8 million). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $43.8 million.
CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926) – Le bassin aux nymphéas CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2023
Le bassin aux nymphéas, one of Monet’s monumental canvases from the celebrated water lily series, will be a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York on November 9. Modern and timeless, Le bassin aux nymphéas captures the dynamism and beauty of nature’s transience, exploring the ephemeral atmosphere, seasonal blooms, watery depths, and glimmering reflections of light of Monet’s famed lily pond in Giverny. This superb example has been held in the same family collection for over fifty years. It is estimated to realise over $65 million.
Monet’s paintings of the water lilies are now among the most highly coveted and celebrated Impressionist masterpieces of his oeuvre, with examples held in the most esteemed private and institutional collections around the world. Le bassin aux nymphéasdates from 1917-1919, an all-important period of experimentation in Monet’s practice during which he achieved a new painterly vision of the lily-pond, sparked by his desire to create mural size images of the motif rather than the smaller water landscapes he had been creating prior. These grand, monumental depictions were filled with gestural, vigorous bolts of color that coalesce to form the watery landscape, the vibrancy and gestural quality of the brushwork revealing the impressive energy that lay behind the artist’s paintings, even at this late stage of his career.
PAUL CEZANNE (1839–1906) – Fruits et pot de gingembre ($35 million – 55 million). CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2023
Three masterpiece paintings by Paul Cezanne will highlight Christie’s 20th Century evening sale In New York on November 9 during Fall Marquee Week. Fruits et pot de gingembre ($35 million – 55 million), Quatre pommes et un couteau ($7 million – 10 million) and La mer à L’Estaque ($3 million – 5 million) are from the collection of the Museum Langmatt in Baden, Switzerland, home to one of the most extraordinary collections of Impressionist art in Europe, assembled with care and passion in the early 20th century by famed collectors Sidney and Jenny Brown.
Bequeathed to the City of Baden, Switzerland in 1987, the villa Langmatt a historic family home built in 1900-01 was converted into a public museum and cultural institution which opened in 1990. The Museum has required increasing levels of care, to maintain its aging physical facilities, which has substantially depleted the resources of the Langmatt foundation. The Museum will receive substantial funds from the City of Baden and the Canton Aargau towards renovation and restoration and the foundation must raise CHF 40 million / circa US$45 million for its endowment fund, providing the necessary interest rates for the long-term future of the museum’s operation. The sale of these three Cezanne masterpieces will be offered in a unique sale format. They will be offered consecutively until the total amount bid achieves the fundraising target. The Museum has committed to sell only the lots required to achieve its goal. Once this 40M mark has been reached in the auction, any subsequent lot(s) in the trio will be withdrawn from sale and returned to public display in Switzerland.
Barbara Hepworth – Three Oblique Forms (Walk In) (1968). UPDATE: THIS MADE £5,830,000)
Barbara Hepworth’s Three Oblique Forms (Walk In) (1968) will lead Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London on October 18. Standing at almost three metres in height it is one of a rare and highly important group of monumental sculptures created by Barbara Hepworth in the 1960’s. They were intended to be set in open-air surroundings and make a new understanding of landscape. Three Oblique Forms (Walk In) is on view in the garden setting of St James’s Square, adjacent to Christie’s headquarters on London’s King Street, until October 18, a unique opportunity to enjoy the work in a public outdoor space accessible to all. The piece is estimated at £6,000,000-9,000,000.
