JAN DAVIDSZ. DE HEEM (UTRECHT 1606-1684 ANTWERP) – STILL LIFE. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,670,000
A pie on a pewter plate, a partially peeled lemon and overturned silver spoon on a pewter plate, crayfish and shrimp in a Wanli bowl, fruit, a walnut and an oyster on a pewter plate, a basket of fruit, a fluted glass, a silver-gilt cup, a roemer, an overturned silver tazza on a strong box, a silver ewer and a bread roll all on a partially draped table with a curtain beyond are in this marvellous oil on canvas signed and dated ‘J. De Heem f. A° 1649’. Estimated at £3 million – £5 million it will be a highlight at Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on July 1 during Classic Week in London.
This appetising work – painted at a time when De Heem produced some of his finest works – reprises themes from an extraordinary group of four large-scale paintings that the artist executed earlier in the decade, but with greater refinement of execution, perhaps in part due to its more manageable scale. Two of these paintings are today at the Louvre (inv. no. 1321) and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. K 1878/5). A third is in a private collection, and the fourth was sold for a world auction record at Christie’s in London on 15 December 2020.
Roy Lichtenstein – Reflections: Art at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $5,479,000
In a tough year for the global art market the big May New York art sales this month are seriously slimmed down but nonetheless offer rich pickings for collectors with deep pockets untroubled by market turmoil.
Auction data, the only section of the opaque art market with sales that can be computed accurately, indicates that overall turnover declined last year for the third year in a row. At blue chip levels there are very few categories where the value of art has gone up in the past two years. Add global uncertainty, tariffs and changing collecting habits to the mix and … who can tell.
Piet Mondrian – Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Grey, Yellow, Black and Blue from the Riggio collection at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $47,560,000
Better news for collectors is that last year more art than ever was sold at auction – for less money. Record auction numbers for artworks at less than €500 or €1,000 is not what floats the boat at senior management levels at big auction houses and major international galleries but it does show that love for art is widespread.
A mere 37 lots will feature at Christie’s 20th century evening sale on Monday May 12 with 42 at the 21st century evening sale on May 14. There will be 65 lots at Sotheby’s Modern evening auction in New York on May 13 and 43 lots at the Now and Contemporary evening auction on May 15. Totals at both houses will be boosted by the sales of lots from the collection of gallerist Barbara Gladstone ($12 million – €10.52 million) along with works from the collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein (Sotheby’s) and selected works from the collection of Barnes and Nobel founder Len Riggio and his wife Louise (Christie’s) valued at $250 million (€219.20 million).
Paul Signac Saint George. Couchant (Venise) showing the facade of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice at Sunset at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $8,102,000
Art by Mondrian, Magritte, Picasso, Giacometti, Warhol from the Riggio Collection will excite the interest of worldwide collectors and has been toured in advance to London, Paris, Hong Kong, Dubai and Los Angeles. Len Riggio died last year and his widow is downsizing from her Park Avenue apartment.
The 21st century evening sale at Christie’s reflects the seismic shifts over the last 50 years in the art landscape. There is art by Jean Michel Basquiat, Ed Ruscha, Cecily Brown, Julie Mehretu, Simone Leigh, Lisa Brice, Louis Fratino and others.
The Modern evening auction at Sotheby’s features artworks that capture the spirit of artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who dared challenge established norms. There is work by Picasso, Giacometti, Magritte, Monet, Delauney, Schiele, Matisse, Munch and Signac included.
Lisa Brice – Midday Drinking Den, After Embah I and II at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $2,954,000
GIOVANNI ANTONIO CANAL, CALLED IL CANALETTO (VENICE 1697–1768) Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, circa 1732
Canaletto’s breathtaking view of Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, circa 1732, will lead Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on July 1 during Classic Week London (estimate in excess of £20 million). Having only appeared at auction twice in its 300-year history, in 1751 and 1993, this picture is in a remarkable state of preservation with the surface of the painting beautifully textured and the rich impasto of the figures intact. Inaccessible to scholars throughout much of its history, it has only recently come to light that the picture hung at 10 Downing Street, where it is first recorded in 1736, in the collection of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745). This illustrious early 18th century provenance makes it – along with its pendant of the Grand Canal – the earliest recorded work by the Venetian master to be hung in an English house, predating King George III’s purchase of Consul Joseph Smith’s Canalettos by a quarter of a century.
MAURICE SENDAK (1928-2012) – Where the Wild Things Are [New York]: Harper & Row, 1963 First edition, first state, from the author’s library Estimate: $6,000-9,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE $5,670
An unprecedented opportunity to explore the images and ideas that fed the imagination of one of the most beloved picture book artists in history, Maurice Sendak, is coming to Christie’s New York. The Maurice Sendak, Artist, Collector, Connoisseur sale will run as a live auction on June 10 and online from May 29-June 12. His books have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. The sales will present more than 100 works by artists who inspired Sendak and almost 30 original works by Sendak himself.
Sendak’s taste ranged across the past 500 years and from textiles, to toys, to Chinese ceramics. The sale offers some of the great names in art history: Dürer, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Hockney with a special emphasis on British artists, including William Blake, but also George Stubbs, Henry Fuseli, and Samuel Palmer. There are works by children’s authors including Beatrix Potter and Eric Carle, as well as objects featuring Sendak’s lifelong inspiration, Mickey Mouse.
UPDATE: THE SALE TOTAL WAS $4.8 MILLION
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)Songs of Innocence Printed by the author, 1789. Estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000. UPSDATE: THIS MADE $1,260,000
The Golconda Blue – the largest fancy vivid blue diamond ever to be offered at auction – comes up at Christie’s in Geneva on May 14 with an estimate of $35 – 50 million. Weighing an extraordinary 23.24 carats and perfectly mounted in a ring by JAR it ranks among the rarest and most important diamonds.
Tpear-shaped diamond boasts a remarkable provenance rooted in Indian Royalty. Yeshwant Rao Holkar, the Maharaja of Indore and a member of the Holkar dynasty, was known—alongside his wife—for a lifestyle defined by elegance and cosmopolitan sophistication in the 1920s and ’30s. A Knight of the Order of the Indian Empire, the Maharaja spent much of his time abroad, cultivating a strong affinity for Western art, design, and jewellery. In 1913, his father acquired the famed Indore Pear diamonds from Chaumet, marking the beginning of a long-standing relationship with the historic Parisian Maison. In 1923, during another visit to Chaumet, he commissioned a diamond bracelet set with his own 23-carat pear-shaped Golconda blue diamond.
Yeshwant Rao Holkar appointed Mauboussin as his official jeweller in 1933. Thereafter, Mauboussin reimagined much of the Maharaja’s collection and created the exceptional necklace including the Golconda Blue and the Indore Pears. Holkar collaborated with other iconic jewelers, including Harry Winston. In 1946, Mr. Winston purchased the Indore Pears from the Maharaja, and the following year, in January 1947, he acquired this 23-carat blue diamond. Winston later set it in a brooch alongside a matching 23-carat white diamond, which he sold to the Maharaja of Baroda. The brooch was subsequently reacquired by Mr. Winston and resold as a newly designed jewel to its current owner.
It is now at auction for the first time. UPDATE: THE STONE WAS PULLED FROM THE SALE AFTER IT WAS REPORTED THAT THE OWNERS DECIDED TO SELL IT WITHIN THE FAMILY.
Red Canna by Georgia O’Keeffe is among the highlights at Christie’s Modern American Art sale in New York on April 17. Painted in 1919 it is estimated at $1 million – $1.5 million (€910,000-€1.37 million). There is art by Jacob Lawrence, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Henrietta Shore, Helen Torr, Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and many more on offer.
Roderic O’Connor – Paysage, Pont Aven, 1892. UPDATE: THIS MADE £378,000
Paysage, Pont Aven, an important and vibrant example of Roderic O’Conor’s stripe pictures, comes up at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art evening sale in London on March 19. It was exhibited in Paris at the 1892 Salon des Indépendents demonstrating its avant-garde approach and technique. The stripe pictures are generally accepted as the artist’s most desirable period. The estimate is £200,000-£300,000.
The auction features an interior by Sir John Lavery, The Hall, Argyll House, A summer’s day (1925). Argyll House on the King’s Road was home to Sybil Colefax and her husband Arthur in 1925. Known for her exceptional taste, she founded her business in the 1930’s and in 1938 was joined by John Fowler. Her business became known as Colefax & Fowler. The estimate is £100,000-£150,000.
Sir John Lavery – The Hall, Argyll House – A Summer Day, 1925. UPDATE: THIS MADE £157,500.
Yoshitomo Nara – Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £9,027,500
Van Gogh, Calder, Tamara de Lempica, Leonora Carrington and Francis Bacon are among the wide range of celebrated artists whose work will come under the hammer at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London next week.
At all levels of the market the offerings locally, nationally and internationally are appetising as the art selling season gets seriously underway.
Featured in no less than 17 international exhibitions Francis Bacon’s Portrait of a Man with Glasses III from 1963 is among the highlights at Christie’s 20th/21st evening sale next Wednesday (March 5). It is at auction for the first time.
An arresting portrait of the bacteriologist Dr. Boucard by Tamara de Lempicka is another highlight of an auction with work by Modigliani, Monet, Twombly and Polke and other luminaries.
A small and intricate stabile by Alexander Calder, blending movement, balance and colour, is among the standouts at Sotheby’s contemporary day auction on the same day.
Yoshitomo Nara’s Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) is a highlight at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening auction next Tuesday. Nara will be the subject of a retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London from next June.
The evening sale features art by Gerhard Richter, Constantin Brancusi, a pen and ink drawing of a public garden in Arles by Van Gogh, a charcoal on paper portrait by Matisse and art by Lucio Fontana, Picasso, Rodin and Roy Lichtenstein.
Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico are among the artists in the Art of the Surreal sale at Christie’s on Wednesday evening. Sacrament at Minos by Carrington testifies to her engagement with a myriad of cultures and their ideologies.
PIET MONDRIAN (1872-1944) Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, 21 ¼ x 21 in. (54 x 53.3 cm.) Painted in Paris in 1922. UPDATE: THIS MADE $47.6 million
Art by Mondrian, Magritte, Picasso, Giacometti, Warhol and other luminaries will come under the hammer at Christie’s in New York in May in a single owner evening sale. The Leonard and Louise Riggio collected works will be offered during Spring Marquee Week. The founder of Barnes and Noble died last year and his widow is downsizing from her Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue. With more than 30 works that represent an anthology of changing ideas, the works in the collection range from Surrealist musings to reflections on the influence of Classicism. Collectively, the artworks in the sale are expected to realise in excess of $250 million. The collection will be toured to London, Hong Kong, Paris, Dubai and Los Angeles.
The Mondrian is expected to be the top lot with an estimate that is expected to top the $51 million record for a work by the artist set in 2022. The selection also features two exemplary Surrealist paintings by René Magritte, including the first work from his most highly coveted series, L’empire des lumières, and Les droits de l’hommes completed just a year prior, in January 1948. Further highlights include a 1937 Pablo Picasso portrait of the renowned photographer Lee Miller and three Alberto Giacometti sculptures, includingFemme de Venise I, conceived in 1956 and cast in 1958.
Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “It is an honour to be entrusted with this inimitable collection, a tribute to Leonard and Louise Riggio and their enduring legacy as patrons of the arts and passionate collectors. Each artwork included in this encyclopedic collection is exemplary, demonstrating the Riggios’ deep appreciation for human creativity. Christie’s strives to present exceptional art and objects, and this seminal collection, to be offered to a global audience this spring, will be a highlight of the year.”
René Magritte – L’empire des lumières. UPDATE: THIS MADE $35 million
Egon Schiele – Knabe in Matrosenanzug (Boy in a Sailor Suit) 1914. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,307,000
Egon Schiele’s Boy in a Sailor Suit is among the highlights at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale on March 5. Part of the collection of Fritz Grünbaum the work is being offered following a restitution agreement. The collection was lost when the Nazis annexed Austria in the late 1930s, and Mr. Grünbaum and his wife Lilly were sent to concentration camps where they perished. Grünbaum was a celebrated cabaret performer, writer, actor and outspoken opponent of Nazism, active in Vienna during the early twentieth century. Over the course of his life, he purchased over 80 works by Egon Schiele spanning the full range of Schiele’s creative output. The estimate is £1 million – £1.5 million and proceeds will help the Grünbaum Fischer Foundation support underrepresented performing artists.
For more than a quarter of a century, Christie’s has engaged with the legacy of Nazi-era and World War II art theft and dispossession. Losses during 1933–1945 to Europe’s collections, in particular those of Jewish collectors, through persecution, confiscation, and forced sales continue to resonate strongly in the art world today.
