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CAPTIVATING KLIMT PORTRAIT AT SOTHEBY’S

Thursday, June 4th, 2015

Property from the Fels?ványi Collection Gustav Klimt Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Fels?ványi) / (Portrait of Gertrud Loew -Gertha Fels?ványi) signed Gustav Klimt and dated 1902 (upper left)

Gustav Klimt
Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsoványi) UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £24.8 MILLION

Gustav Klimt’s captivating portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern evening sale in London on June 24. This follows a settlement between the Felsöványi family and The Klimt Foundation. Dating from 1902 it is estimated at £12-18 million. It depicts Gertrud Loew, later known by her married name Gertha Felsöványi, a member of fin-de-siècle Viennese society, wreathed in diaphanous folds of gossamer fabric.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide said: “Bildnis Gertrud Loew, from a crucial period in the artist’s career, is one his finest portraits to appear at auction in over twenty years.”

Gertrud Felsöványi’s granddaughter on behalf of family heirs, said: “This portrait portrays the brave and determined nature of my grandmother. Her strength of character and beauty lives on in this visual embodiment. My father, Anthony Felsöványi, last saw this painting in June 1938 when he left the family home for the last time to depart for America. At that time my grandmother had been advised to leave her family home to live in a less grand home to try to avoid the attention of the Nazis, given her Jewish ancestry. Eventually, under duress, in 1939 she left Vienna altogether to join my father in America, having left all of her belongings behind – including this painting. Her home had been taken over as a Nazi headquarters and she had left her valuable belongings with friends and acquaintances. After the war, she never returned to Vienna. Only my father’s sister did, with the hope of retrieving some of their belongings, but to no avail. My father said that my grandmother never again mentioned the painting or the valuable belongings she had left behind”.

UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £24.8 MILLION. The sale followed a ten minute bidding battle. It was the second highest price paid for a Klimt portrait at auction.

Tags: Klimt, sotheby's
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MANET’S Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère AT SOTHEBY’S

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832 – 1883)
LE BAR AUX FOLIES BERGÈRE UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £16.9 MILLION

Manet’s first version of The Bar at the Folies Bergere comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale in London on June 24. Depicting one of his most iconic subjects Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère of 1881 by Édouard Manet is estimated at £15-20 million. The painting remained in the artist’s personal collection up until his death, after which it went to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. It was shown to the public in 1905 in the now legendary exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, London, which introduced the British public to Impressionism. Since then the work has been exhibited extensively internationally and most recently featured as one of the highlights of the National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition in London Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market.

The second and final version of the work is at The Courtauld Institute in London.

UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £16.9 MILLION. The same work made £4.4 million when sold at Sotheby’s in 1994.

Tags: Manet, sotheby's
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A LOCKET WITH MOZART’S HAIR AT SOTHEBY’S

Monday, May 25th, 2015

The locket containing a lock of Mozart’s hair. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £35,000

A lock of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s hair contained in a 19th century gilt locket comes up at Sotheby’s in London on May 28. The strands were given by Mozart’s widow, Constanze, to the mother of the German-born conductor Karl Anschütz (1813-1870). It then passed into the collection of one of the most successful English song-composers of all time, Arthur Sommervell (1863-1937) whose direct descendent owns the item today. It is estimated at £10,000-12,000.

Locks of hair were frequently taken as keepsakes. The auction will also feature a printed invitation to Beethoven’s funeral, together with a small lock of his white hair (est. £2,000 – 3,000). Testament to this tradition, Gerhard von Breuning, the son of Beethoven’s lifelong friend, recalled that when he visited the composer to pay his last respects “strangers had already cut all the strands of his hair”.

Opportunities to get close to figures from history have always been met with fascination. In 2002, Sotheby’s sold a different lock of Mozart’s hair, passed down from the mistress of one of Mozart’s sons, for £38,240 – double its pre-sale high estimate. The British Museum holds a heart shaped pendant with a snippet of Marie Antoinette’s hair within its collection.

Tags: Mozart, sotheby's
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ROTHKO’S YELLOW AND BLUE SELLS FOR $46.5 MILLION

Wednesday, May 13th, 2015

Untitled (Yellow and Blue) by Mark Rothko sold for $46.5 million

Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Yellow and Blue) made $46.5 million at Sotheby’s in New York last night. It was the top lot in a contemporary art evening sale which realised $380 million and set seven new artist price records. There was global participation with works consigned from 11 countries and bidders from 40 countries and significant participation from Latin America and Asia.

Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Yellow and Blue), which was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon for over 30 years, sold for $46,450,000 to an anonymous client after it was underbid by an Asian private collector.

Roy Lichtenstein’s The Ring (Engagement) sold for $41,690,000. The work has had only two owners in 50 years and came from the collection of Stefan T. Edlis. The price is nearly 20 times the $2,202,500 the work fetched when it last appeared at auction in November 1997 at Sotheby’s.

There were artists records for Christopher Wool, Sigmar Polke, Mark Bradford, Mark Grotjahn, Danh Vô, Thomas Struth and Helen Frankenthaler.

(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for May 8 and April 13, 2015).

Andy Warhol’s Superman sold for $14,362,000

Sigmar Polke – Dschungel (Jungle), sold for a new record of $27,130,000

Tags: Andy Warhol, MARK ROTHKO, ROY LICHTENSETIN, Sigmar Polke, sotheby's
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ROY LICHTENSTEIN’S $50 MILLION ENGAGEMENT AT SOTHEBY’S

Friday, May 8th, 2015

In the early 1960’s American art went Pop. Roy Lichtenstein’s The Ring (Engagement) from 1962 is one of the most subtle and complex works from this period, epitomizing as it does Lichtenstein’s hot and cold approach – hot in his choice of dramatic subject matter, cold in its graphic execution and painted just as his first marriage was ending. Estimated at around $50 million the work comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening auction in New York on May 12. It is from the collection of Chicago businessman and philanthropist Stefan T. Edlis. Here is a video from Sotheby’s about it.

UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $41,690,000

Tags: Roy Lichtenstein, sotheby's
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A PERFECT 100 CARAT DIAMOND MAKES $22.1 MILLION

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015

The perfect stone.

An extraordinary 100.20-carat ‘Perfect Diamond’ in a classic Emerald-cut sold for $22.1 million at Sotheby’s NewYork headquarters. Diamonds of this exceptional quality – D color and Internally Flawless clarity – are incredibly rare, and are considered ‘perfect’. What distinguishes the present example within this rarefied league is its beautiful shape: it is the largest perfect diamond with a classic Emerald-cut ever to be sold at auction.

Only six perfect diamonds weighing over 100 carats have sold at auction in the last 25 years. The sale of magnificent jewels totaled $65.1 million. Ten jewels sold for more than $1 million, including four sold to online bidders.

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 13, 2015).

Tags: Diamonds, sotheby's
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GREAT COLLECTION OF TIFFANY AT SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

One of the greatest collections of Tiffany and prewar design to appear at auction will come up at Sotheby’s in New York on May 19. The sale of the Warshawsky collection, assembled by the Chicago based Ray Warshawsky from the late 1960’s to the early 1990’s, features works of rich quality and luminosity of colour. He assembled an encyclopedic collection of Tiffany which spans every artistic discipline of the firms production.

UPDATE: The Collection totalled $7,951,125 with 98.6% of all lots sold. Fierce demand for the collection’s many treasures drove more than three-quarters of all 138 lots on offer to exceed their pre-sale high estimates.

Tiffany Studios – Elaborate Peony Lamp c1910 ($600,000-900,000). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

Tiffany Studios River of Life Window, (1915) ($200,000-300,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $394,000

Tags: sotheby's, Tiffany
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MOST IMPORTANT BRONTE MANUSCRIPT AT AUCTION IN 30 YEARS

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

The first page of the Bronte manuscript, dated 1830. (Click on image to enlarge). Image copyright Sotheby's. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £690,850.

AN unpublished notebook by Charlotte Brontë, the most important Brontë manuscript to appear at auction in more than thirty years, will highlight Sotheby’s sale of English Literature in London on December 15. Set in ‘Glass Town’, the earliest fictional world that the four Brontë siblings created, and written by a fourteen-year-old Charlotte in miniature magazine format, The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2, is dated August 1830.

The Bronte manuscript held in the palm of a hand. (Click on image to enlarge). Image copyright Sotheby's.

The story within contains a colourful tale of murder and madness which includes a precursor to one of the most famous scenes in Jane Eyre – the moment when Bertha, Mr Rochester’s insane wife seeks revenge by setting fire to the bed curtains in her husband’s chamber.

Containing more than 4,000 words painstakingly crammed on to 19 pages, it is estimated to make £200,000-300,000.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £690,850. This is a new record for at auction for a manuscript by Charlotte Bronte and a record at auction for any work by the Bronte sisters. It was bought by La Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris, where it will be exhibited in January.

Tags: Charlotte Bronte, sotheby's
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IRISH BIRD PICTURES BY SAMUEL DIXON MAKE $98,500 IN NEW YORK

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

One of the set of 14 Samuel Dixon bird pictures. (Click on image to enlarge).

A group of 14 Irish George II embossed bird pictures c1750 by Samuel Dixon has been sold for $98,500 in New York. It happened on the final day of the four day sale of the Safra Collections at Sotheby’s. The lot had been estimated at $60,000-90,000. Samuel Dixon was based on Capel St. in Dublin city centre where he produced embossed papier-mâché pictures of birds and flowers sold in black and gold japanned frames. At the same sale sets of six and four Dixon bird pictures made $15,000 and $31,250 respectively and a set of Flower pictures sold for $28,125.

The Burghley Epergne (click on image to enlarge).

The Burghley Epergne, a masterpiece of the English Rococo from the Safra Collections, made $950,000. It was created for the distinguished collector and patron Cecil Brownlow, 9th Earl of Exeter (1725-1793), known as Lord Burghley from 1725 to 1754. The design for this centrepiece is in the Louis XV picturesque manner celebrated by the artist and engraver William Hogarth in his Analysis of Beauty published in 1753. The ornament is inspired by the writings of Virgil and celebrates the triumph of Venus with the union of Bacchus and Ceres. The evolution of the abundant fruit form, derived from the Louis Quatorze style, can be traced through engravings on the confectioner’s art, especially that of Le Sieur Guilleurs, La Carameliste Française, 1684 re-issued in 1750.

The four day sale of the Safra Collections brought in $45,900,064.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 11 and July 10, 2011.

Tags: new york, Samuel Dixon, sotheby's
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FREUD PORTRAIT BOY’S HEAD MAKES £3.17 MILLION AT SOTHEBY’S

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Boy's Head by Lucian Freud made £3,177,250. (Click on image to enlarge).

Lucian Freud’s (1922-2011) 1952 portrait Boy’s Head made £3,177,250 at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale on October 13. It was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder. The sitter, Charlie Lumley, was a neighbour of Freud’s when he moved to Paddington in 1952. The portrait transmits a remarkable psychological intensity. The estimate was £3-4 million.

The evening sales of Contemporary Art and 20th Century Italian Art brought a combined total of £39,456,950 against the pre-sale estimate of £34,982,000-48,338,000. A total of six artist records were established for Alberto Burri, Leon Kossoff, Wim Delvoye, Francesco Lo Savio, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giuseppe Penone.

Contemporary art realised £17,809,000 with 36 of the 47 lots offered sold. The 20th Century Italian art sale achieved the highest-ever total for a sale in this category, at £21,647,950.

See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 12, 2011.

Tags: Lucian Freud, sotheby's
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