Sotheby’s France to Offer 400 Items from The Fabius Frères Gallery Collection

PARIS.- Sotheby’s announce, in association with the auction house PIASA, the sale of the Fabius Frères Gallery collection on the 26th and 27th October 2011 in Paris. The 400 sculptures, pieces of furniture, works of art, drawings and 19th century paintings, estimated to sell in the region of €10 million ($14,5 million), will be on view at the Galerie Charpentier for five days prior to the sale. The Fabius Frères Gallery is known worldwide for the exceptional quality, condition and provenance of [...]

Sotheby’s Achieves Second Highest Price for Any Old Master Painting at Auction in London

LONDON.- Tonight Sotheby’s London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale was led by Francesco Guardi’s monumental masterpiece Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, which established the highest price of the week of London Old Master Sales when it sold for an astonishing £26,697,250/$42,865,105/ €29,834,146 (est. £15-25 million*). Achieving a record as the 2nd highest price for any Old Master Painting sold at auction, a record for any Venetian view painting at auction**, as well [...]

Sotheby’s to Offer Spectacular Works by Leading International Designers at Sudeley Castle

LONDON.- Sotheby’s announces an exciting line‐up for MATERIAL WORLDS, its second outdoor selling exhibition at Sudeley Castle, from 28th July to 30th September 2011. The exhibition brings together cutting‐edge, one‐off and limited edition works in strikingly different materials by 11 artists and designers, including Ingo Maurer, Tord Boontje, Paul Fryer, Laura Ellen Bacon and leading architects David Adjaye and Amanda Levete. Set amidst medieval Sudeley and its romantic ruins and award‐winning gardens in Gloucestershire, the works will challenge the boundaries of Design, Art [...]

Sotheby’s Establishes Highest Total for Any Sale of Contemporary Art Ever in London

LONDON.- This evening, Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Evening Sale brought the extraordinary total of £108,803,550 / $174,129,201 /€120,923,897 – in excess of pre-sale expectations (estimate: £74-105 million) and establishing the highest total ever achieved for any sale of Contemporary Art in London. Buyers from 14 countries participated in the auction, which achieved remarkable sell-through rates of 89.8% by lot and 93.9% by value and established five new artist records. Twenty-nine works sold for over £1 million, and 45 lots sold for [...]

Record for a Sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings and Drawings at Sotheby’s

PARIS.- The final sale of the season at Sotheby’s Paris, devoted to Old Master & 19th Century Paintings & Drawings, yielded €7.6m – the highest total for a sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings & Drawings by Sotheby’s France to date, including three world records. Pierre Etienne, Head of the Old Master Paintings & Drawings Department, observed that ‘Today’s sale included many rediscovered or market-fresh works from 17th and 18th century France, consigned from European private collections like the [...]

One of the Greatest Venetian View Paintings by Francesco Guardi to Lead Sotheby’s Sale

LONDON.- On 6th July 2011, Sotheby’s London Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale will offer a selection of newly discovered and important works of exceptional quality and rarity, many of which have remained in private collections for decades. Estimated to reach a total in excess of £31 million, the auction of 73 paintings, led by a monumental Venetian view painting by Francesco Guardi, will feature masterpiece works by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Correggio, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, John Constable, Giovanni [...]

Christie’s to Sell Most Outstanding Group of Lucian Freud Drawings to Come to Auction

LONDON.- Christie’s will offer a selection of works from the collection of Kay Saatchi at the Post-War and Contemporary art auctions in London in June 2011. The collection features an outstanding and rare group of early works on paper by Lucian Freud, executed in the 1940s, Ron Mueck’s Big Baby, the first work in the artist’s catalogue raisonné and Paula Rego’s masterpiece, Looking Back. These works represent Ron Mueck, Big Baby, 1996 Lucian Freud, Rabbit on a chair, 1944 the [...]

Andy Warhol’s Portrait of Debbie Harry, A Highlight of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale

LONDON.- Selected as the cover image for the major survey of Warhol’s portraiture published by Phaidon in 2005, Debbie Harry, from 1980, is one of Warhol’s most accomplished portraits of celebrity. One of only four such portraits of the Blondie star in this rare 42 inches format, two of which are in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, this pink version has become one of the best recognized images in Warhol’s oeuvre and the definitive portrait of the 1980s style [...]

Sotheby’s Three-Part Single-Owner Evill/Frost Sale Closes with Final Total of $69,343,051

LONDON.- Sotheby’s London, on June 16th, 2011, the final session of Sotheby’s three-part Single-Owner Sale of the greatest collection of 20th-Century British ever to come to the market, The Evill/Frost Collection, closed with a final combined total of £42,484,639 /$69,343,051*, by far exceeding the pre-sale high estimate for the sale series of £19 million. The top lot of the sale series, with no fewer than five bidders vying for the painting, was Stanley Spencer’s Sunflower and Dog Worship, which sold [...]

Sotheby’s Breaks Auction Record for a Work by Stanley Spencer Twice in Same Sale

LONDON (REUTERS).- The auction record for a work by British artist Stanley Spencer fell twice in one sale at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, while a Lucian Freud picture on paper also set a new high. Seven works by Spencer, described by the auctioneer as one of the 20th century’s most important British painters, were on offer at the first section of a three-part sale of the Evill/Frost Collection. They made a total of 23.0 million pounds ($37.6 million), including a record 4.7 [...]

Phillips de Pury & Company Announces the Highlights from June Contemporary Art Auctions

LONDON.- Phillips de Pury & Company, announces highlights from the upcoming June Contemporary Art Evening and Day auctions. Highlights of the Contemporary Evening sale are on show now at Phillips de Pury & Compay’s new space, 45-47 Brook Street at Claridge’s London. The sales will feature important modern and contemporary works across multiple genres. The Contemporary Art Evening auction comprises 32 lots with a pre-sale estimate of £10,250,000/$16,400,000 to £14,820,000/ $23,712,000.The Contemporary Art Day auction comprises 269 lots with a [...]

Sotheby’s to Offer a Newly Discovered Work By Sir Anthony Van Dyck at London Sale

LONDON.- Sotheby’s today announces that it will sell a newly discovered portrait by the great 17th Century Flemish painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck in its 6th July 2011 sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London. The intense and psychologically penetrating portrait of a young Carmelite monk is a hitherto unknown work, which Sotheby’s has discovered to have been painted by the youthful Van Dyck during the years he worked in Rubens’ studio. The painting is estimated to sell [...]

19th Century Paintings Sale at Sotheby’s Amsterdam Totals 1.6 Million Euro

AMSTERDAM.- Today’s sale of 19th Century European Painting at Sotheby’s Amsterdam brought €1,586,925 ($2,312,848), within pre-sale expectations (est. €1.5 – 2 million). The auction achieved sell- through rates of 46.9% by lot and 69.2% by value, and set three new artist records. The highest price achieved was for Winter in the Streets of a Dutch Town painted by Willem Koekkoek (1839-1895), one of the most distinguished painters of townscapes, which realised €228,750 ($333,389) against a pre- sale estimate of €100,000 – [...]

Josef Albers’ Study for Homage to the Square Brings $262,900 in $1.55+ Million at Heritage Auctions

DALLAS, TX.- A prime late period work by Bauhaus master Josef Albers, Study for Homage to the Square: Stucco Setting, 1958, brought $262,900 as the top lot in Heritage Auctions‘ $1,552,954 Signature® Modern & Contemporary Art Auction, providing the principal fireworks in an auction that saw strong prices realized across the board for a wide array of 20th century masters. All prices include 19.5% Buyer’s Premium. More than 425 (U.S. and international) bidders vied for the 157 auction lots. Josef Albers, [...]

Sotheby’s in London Sells a Group of Paintings by Vereschagin for $5.7 Million

LONDON.- Tonight, in Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Important Russian Paintings a group of works by renowned Russian master Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin of Russian, Indian and Balkan scenes brought the well above-expectations combined total of £3.7 / $5.7 million (pre-sale estimate for the group: £1.2-1.9/$1.9-3.1 million). The top-selling lot of this group also set a new auction record for the artist. Headlining the evening auction and this component of the sale was Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin’s oil on canvas The Taj Mahal, Evening, [...]