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    • Posts Tagged ‘sotheby’s’

    GREATEST TOY TRAIN COLLECTION IN WORLD AT SOTHEBY’S

    Thursday, January 20th, 2011

    Part of the Jerni Collection. (click on image to enlarge)

    THE greatest toy and train collection in the world is available for private sale through Sotheby’s as a single lot.  Now on show in New York the Jerni Collection is estimated at 10 million dollars by Sotheby’s.  Others say it could be worth $40/50 million.

    What is on view throughout January and February represents about 20% of a collection of 35,000 objects assembled over 50 years by a single dedicated collector. The pieces date from roughly 1850–1940, and form an encyclopedic collection of toys and trains from every major European and American manufacturer including Märklin, Bing, Ernst Plank Carette and Rock & Graner, chronicling the ‘Golden Age’ of European toy manufacturing.
    “Assembling this collection has been a 50 year journey for me,” commented Jerry Greene, 67, a Pennsylvania-based music executive who owns the collection. “They survived both world wars. For me it’s part of history.”
    Half of the collection was made by Maerklin. Some are outfitted with working fountains and clocks; many are replicas of the actual buildings in Europe. A highlight is an elevated train platform from 1895 with two curved staircases parting like a curtain at the center. “I put it together piece-by-piece”  Greene said.  Like all true collectors the fun for him has been the search.  Now that he is ready to part with it he thinks he will start collecting something else.

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    OLD MASTERS FROM ACROSS EUROPE AT SOTHEBY’S IN NEW YORK

    Friday, January 7th, 2011

    The Madonna and Child enthroned with Angels, flanked by St. Bridget and the Archangel Michael at Sotheby's in New York. (click to enlarge)

    SIGNIFICANT works by artists from across Europe feature at Sotheby’s Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture sale in New York on January 27.  This sale features Titian’s Sacra Conversazione (see antiquesandartireland.com post for November 2) estimated at $15/$20 million.

    Among the works to be sold by the J. Paul Getty Museum to benefit future painting acquisitions is
    The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Flanked by Saint Bridget and the Archangel Michael.  Erroneously known as “The Poggibonsi Triptych”  the work has been attributed to the as-yet-unidentified Master of Pratovecchio, who worked in and around Florence in the mid-15th century. It is estimated at $200/300,000.
    The afternoon session of Old Master Paintings and Sculpture is led by an Italian marble relief portrait of Cosimo I de ‘Medici by Baccio Bandinelli, executed just prior to the future Grand Duke’s rise to power in 1537.
    Luis Meléndez’s Still Life with Tomatoes, a Bowl of Aubergines and Onions leads the Spanish paintings.   It is estimated at $1.5/2 million.  A popular exhibition of 40 still lifes by Meléndez (1716-1780), organised in collaboration with the Prado Museum in Madrid, was held at the National Gallery of Ireland in the summer of 2004.

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    RECORD BREAKING WINE SALES AT SOTHEBY’S

    Monday, December 20th, 2010
    THE Season to be Merry extended year round in some quarters.  Sotheby’s wine auctions in 2010 brought an overall global total of US$88,270,602.  This is more than double the figure for 2009 and the highest in the company’s forty years of wine auctions. There was extraordinary demand from Asian collectors with every bottle offered in eight Hong Kong auctions finding a buyer and major Asian participation in London and Hong Kong sales.  Globally 99% of wine lots found buyers, and all 23 auctions exceeded the high estimate.
    The Asian sales were led by the two auctions of wine direct from the Châteaux – Cheval Blanc, Yquem and Dom Pérignon which fetched $2.6 million in May and Lafite Ex Cellars which brought $8.3 million in October.
    There was a new record for a single standard sized bottle at the Ex Cellars sale when a bottle of Château Lafite 1869 sold for $232,692.
    Sotheby’s will offer the Andrew Lloyd Webber Wine Collection in Hong Kong on January 22 next.

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    ANTIQUE MODEL OF LUSITANIA MORE VALUABLE THAN THE REAL THING

    Saturday, December 18th, 2010
    An antique model of the Lusitania made $194,500 at Sotheby’s in New York on December 17. The actual wreck of the ill fated vessel on the seabed off Ireland changed hands for just £1,000 in 1968. The Marklin model, made c1912 in Germany, was the top lot in the sale of the Malcolm Forbes toy collection.  The sale realised $2,381,008.
    Sotheby’s say the model, which has become the most expensive toy boat ever sold at auction, was crafted by Marklin at the height of their creative genius and that, like good wine, age has improved it. Lusitania was launched in England in 1906 and made her maiden voyage in 1907. The transatlantic liner was hit by a German torpedo off the coast of Cork in 1915.   The Cunard Line vessel sank in just 18 minutes, losing 1,198 of her 1,959 civilian passengers.  In 1967 the wreck of the Lusitania was sold by the Liverpool & London War Risks Insurance Association to former US Navy diver John Light for £1,000. Gregg Bemis became a co-owner of the wreck in 1968, and by 1982 had bought out his partners to become sole owner.  Mr. Bemis is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who ran unsuccessfully three times as a Republican candidate in New Mexico.
    See antiquesandartireland.com post for December 9

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    JANE AUSTEN’S EMMA, SIGNED BY MARIA EDGEWORTH, SELLS FOR £79,250

    Thursday, December 16th, 2010

    Jane Austen's Emma signed by Maria Edgeworth. (click to enlarge)

    AN extremely rare first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma, signed by the Irish authoress Maria Edgeworth, made a hammer price with buyer’s premium of £79,250 at Sotheby’s in London on December 16.  It is the only known copy of Emma given by Jane Austen – Britain’s most beloved authoress – to a fellow writer.

    Emma was published in three volumes by John Murray on December 23, 1815.  This lot comprised volumes I and 3. No part of the manuscript for Emma survives and no presentation copy inscribed by Jane Austen herself is known to exist.  This copy has remained in Maria Edgeworth’s family ever since. The Irish writer is regarded as the creator, in Castle Rackrent, of the first true historical novel in English.
    At the same sale a first printing in England of James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in London by John Lane the Bodley Head in 1936, sold for £11,875.  This was number 89 of a limited edition of 1,000 copies.
    Sotheby’s English Literature and History and Childrens books and illustrations sale realised £821,813.  (see antiquesandartireland.com post for October 29)

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    NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR SIR STANLEY SPENCER AT SOTHEBY’S

    Thursday, December 16th, 2010

    Sir Stanley Spencer's Hilda and I at Pond Street, dating from 1954, sold for £1,430,050. (click on image to enlarge)

    There was a new auction record for a work by Sir Stanley Spencer at Sotheby’s in London on December 15.  Hilda and I at Pond Street, dating from 1954, sold for £1,430,050 ($2,249,612), far in excess of its pre-sale estimate of £400,000-600,000. James Rawlin, senior director in 20th century British art at Sotheby’s, said the result helps establish Spencer as one of the central figures of figurative art in Britain in the 20th century.

    Works by Frank Auerbach, Dame Barbara Hepworth, L.S. Lowry, Christopher Wood and Lynn Chadwick also performed well in the sale of 20th century British art.  It realised a total of £8,255,625.  Sotheby’s pointed out that there is a higher price in US dollars for a work by Spencer.  His Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta; Listening from Punts made £1,237,600 / $2,270,852 in June 2004.

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    GREAT YEAR FOR OLD MASTERS AT SOTHEBYS

    Saturday, December 11th, 2010

    GEORGE STUBBS, A.R.A. LIVERPOOL 1724 - 1806 LONDON BROOD MARES AND FOALS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE EARL OF MACCLESFIELD. (click to enlarge)

    Sotheby’s December series of Old Master & British Paintings sales in London made an overall total of £27,991,125. This brings the total for worldwide sales of Old Master & British Pictures at Sotheby’s in 2010 to just over £153,000,000.  The highlight of the latest series  was George Stubbs’s Brood Mares and Foals which made a new auction record price of  £10,121,250.  The previous record for Stubbs of £3,191,500 was made in 1995 by his Portrait of The Royal Tiger.

    Alex Bell, head of the International Department, remarked : “Our sales this week end what has been another very successful year for the Old Master market at Sotheby’s. As in New York in January and London in July, we’ve once again this week seen exceptional works of art – with strong and again striking images and good provenance – perform very well and in many cases establish new benchmark prices. In July we led the Old Master sales season with Turner’s Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino (see antiquesandartireland.com post for July 7) while Stubbs’s Brood Mares and Foals has been the undoubted star of the show this week. We’re delighted to see that the Old Master market is experiencing an even greater international reach, with buyers from Russia and China, in particular, showing an ever increasing interest in the field.  These are exciting developments for the Old Master market.”

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    MODEL OF LUSITANIA TO BE SOLD AT SOTHEBY’S

    Thursday, December 9th, 2010

    The Lusitania model. IT MADE $194,500

    A Marklin model of the Lusitania  made c1912 will be sold at Sotheby’s in New York on December 17. It is part of the celebrated Malcolm Forbes collection of toy boats, soldiers, motorcycles and classic board games.  The sale is estimated to realise between $3/$5 million. The major portion consists of sports, naval, commercial and luxury toy boats.

    In May 1915 the Cunard liner was torpedoed 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, precipitating the entry of the US into the First World War.  Lusitania sank in 18 minutes, killing about 1,198 of the 1,959 people on board.
    The model, thirty seven and a half inches long, is estimated at $100,000-$200,000. The deck is finished with intricate details, including working anchors and chain. A view of the lower deck is made possible by cutouts in the hull. It was purchased by Malcolm Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine, for $28,600 at Sotheby’s New York in 1983. At the time this was the highest price ever paid for a toy boat.
    UPDATE: The Lusitania model sold for a hammer price with buyer’s premium of  $194,500

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    NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR A PIECE OF ENGLISH FURNITURE

    Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

    The Harrington Commode made a new world record for a piece of English furniture at auction. (click to enlarge)

    THE Harrington Commode, dating to circa 1770, made a new record for a piece of English furniture at auction at Sotheby’s in London on December 8.  It sold for £3,793,250 over an estimate of £600,000-£1 million. The serpentine commode was almost certainly crafted by Thomas Chippendale.

    It exceeded the previous world record for any piece of English furniture at auction by over £1 million.  Sotheby’s said it set an exciting new benchmark for English furniture.  The George III commode, previously housed at Elvaston Castle, Derbyshire, was sold by order of the Trustees of the 10th Earl of Harrington’s Will Trust. Lord Harrington had extensive Irish estates.  His son, the 11th Earl, who died in 2009, was an Irish citizen and successful horse breeder who maintained studs in Ireland.  He had links to the Royal Family through the marriage of his grand-daughter, Serena Stanhope to the furniture maker Viscount Linley, son of the late Princess Margaret and nephew of Queen Elizabeth.
    The Harrington Commode was part of an Important Furniture, Ceramics, Clocks, Silver & Vertu sale which made £6,216,750. Henry House, Head of English Furniture at Sotheby’s, commented: “This remarkable commode which is outstandingly beautiful in both form and condition, was keenly contested by five bidders, the final price demonstrating true demand in the market for items of real quality, and I feel is justly deserved for an item that has been an honour to sell.”
    The previous world record for a piece of English furniture at auction belonged to a George II Parcel-Gilt Padouk Cabinet-on-Stand attributed to Thomas Chippendale, 1755-1760, which sold for £2,729,250 at Christies in June 2008.

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    NEW WORLD RECORD FOR PRINTED BOOK AT SOTHEBY’S

    Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

    Audobon's Snowy Owl. (click to enlarge)

    A new world record for a printed book sold at auction was established at Sotheby’s in London on December 7.  A magnificent, rare, copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America sold for £7,321,250.
    The 4-volume folio” work had been estimated at £4/£6 million.  It was bought by London dealer Michael Tollemache, who was bidding in the room .   After the sale he described the work as “priceless”.
    In total Sotheby’s sale of Magnificent Books, Manuscripts and Drawings from the collection of Frederick, 2nd Lord Hesketh realised £14.9 million. The sale was 99.6 per cent sold by value and 72 per cent of lots exceeded the high  estimate.
    Other benchmarks of the auction included the sale of 40 letters relating to the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots with four letters signed by Queen Elizabeth I for £349,250 and a complete First Folio of William Shakespeare for £1,497,250.

    Audubon's American Flamingo. (click to enlarge)

    The previous record of £5.5 million for a book sold at auction, for a different copy of Audubon’s Birds of America, was established in New York in 2000.

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