798 District Blog

LONDON.- The continuing international appeal of Asian Art was further illustrated in the September sales in New York which realised $70.7 million; re-confirming Christie’s continued position as market leader for the category with 72 % market share. This autumn, Christie’s London Asian Art Week will run from 9 – 12 November 2010, featuring important, rare and beautiful examples with excellent provenance. The sales include: Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art on 9 November at King Street; Interiors – Juxtaposing Eastern and Western Styles on 9 November at South Kensington; Japanese Art & Design on 10 November at South Kensington and Chinese Ceramics, Works of Art and Textiles on 12 November at South Kensington.

Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art: 9 November at 10.30am, Christie’s King Street
Christie’s Asian Art Week London commences with a remarkable array of porcelains, metal work, furniture, and organic materials such as jade, ivory and rhinoceros horn, offered in the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale on Tuesday 9 November 2010. Featuring over 350 lots, dating from the Shang Dynasty (1600c – 1100c BC) to the Republic Period (1912-49), estimates range from £2,000 up to £1.2 million. The sale is expected to realise in excess of £8million.

The star lot of the whole sale is ceramic: an important and very rare small guanyao baluster vase, Hu southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), 13th century (estimate upon request) which is offered from the Ronald Longsdorf Collection. This exquisitely delicate rich greyish-blue glazed vase has extensive, highly attractive crackle and is of beautiful proportions, measuring just 5.1/8 in. (13 cm.) tall. The bulbous lower body is supported on a tall slightly splayed foot, with a tapering neck which ends with a flaring dished rim.
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As a personal memento of the banking crisis there is an obvious buyer for lot 1001 at Christie’s next Wednesday. Named on a polished metal plaque celebrating the opening of Lehman Brothers European headquarters in 2004, is a certain Gordon Brown, who performed the ceremony.

Then there are the thousands of workers, both bitter and sanguine, who lost their jobs in such dramatic fashion when the Wall Street bank collapsed two years ago this month. “There has been significant interest from ex-employees,” said Christie’s director Ben Clark. “Because it’s a memento of their history.”

Christie’s is auctioning art (from Lucian Freud to Gary Hume) and ephemera (from metal signs to the collected works of Dickens) that once adorned the British and European offices of a bank that seemed as solid as they get for more than 100 years.

Barry Gilbertson, a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and responsible for getting the full value from the estate, was at Christie’s today to see the lots go on display before Wednesday”s sale.

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LONDON.- Christie’s announce an exciting series of public exhibitions, events and auctions from 10 October to 18 October in London coinciding with the Frieze Art Fair. The week will be highlighted by the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Auction and The Italian Sale on 14 October at 6.30pm, which will offer 51 and 45 lots accordingly and which will include an extremely strong section of photography, and the most important work by Damien Hirst to be offered at auction since September 2008 (estimate: £2.5 million to £3.5 million).

Francis Outred, Head of Post-War & Contemporary art, Christie’s Europe : “Every year in October in London, the Frieze art fair gathers art lovers from around the world for one of the most enthusiastic and vibrant celebrations of Contemporary art. This year we will be opening our salerooms and presenting one of our busiest and most accessible ever weeks of events, public exhibitions and sales; from the evening auction of Post-War & Contemporary art and Italian art, to highlights from the forthcoming season of sales in New York and the ‘Multiplied’ print fair hosted at South Kensington, there will be art to see, admire and buy from under £100 to over £3 million.”

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY EVENING AUCTION
Exhibition: 10 to 14 October
Auction: 14 October at 6.30pm
The highlight of the week, the Post-War &Contemporary Evening Auction will offer 51 lots with a combined estimate of £15,950,000 to £22,710,000. The auction is led by I am become death, shatterer of worlds, the largest sized butterfly painting to have been executed by Damien Hirst (b.1965). The most important work by the artist to be offered at auction since Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, the artist’s solo auction in London in September 2008, it is expected to realise £2.5 million to £3.5 million. Over 5 metres wide, the title reflects the words uttered by J. Robert Oppenheimer following the detonation of the Atomic bomb.

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Treasure hunter finds rare antique in Cumbria.

Georgiana Aitken from Christie’s explains why the helmet is special

A metal detector enthusiast in Cumbria has discovered a rare Roman bronze helmet complete with face-mask.

It is believed to be one of only three of its kind to be found in Britain.

The helmet would have been worn, possibly with colourful streamers attached, as a mark of excellence by Roman soldiers at sport parades.

Described as a “hugely important discovery”, it is now expected to fetch £300,000 at Christie’s Antiquities auction in London on 7 October.

The Crosby Garrett Helmet has been named after the hamlet in Cumbria where it was found in a field in May.

Considerable interest

The treasure hunter who found it has asked to remain anonymous.

Christie’s described the find as an “extraordinary example of Roman metalwork at its zenith” and “the discovery of a lifetime” for a metal detectorist.

It is believed that Romans wore the helmets as a mark of rank or excellence in horsemanship.

During sporting events, cavalrymen were divided into two teams and took turns to attack and defend.

Similar helmets were found in 1796 and 1905.

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NEW YORK.- Christie’s will collaborate with the Center of International Cultural Exchange (CICE), a direct subsidiary of the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, to present Trans-Realism, a comprehensive exhibition featuring works from prominent Chinese contemporary artists. The collection will be on view at Christie’s Rockefeller Center from September 9th through September 26th, 2010. Spear-heading this exhibition are the Artistic Directors LU Jun, Director of CICE, and FAN Di-an, Director of the National Art Museum of China. It was curated by PAN Qing, a curator at the National Museum of China, in association with coordinators Michelle Loh and Jay Lu. 29 works of painting and photography by 17 Chinese artists will be included in the exhibition. Trans-Realism is part of Christie’s on-going support for initiatives that promote inter-cultural exchange and exemplifies Christie’s commitment to help bring Chinese art to a global audience.

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Collectors spent big money at Christie’s postwar and contemporary art auction on Tuesday, led by Jasper Johns’ pop art painting “Flag” from a collection that had belonged to best-selling author Michael Crichton, which sold for a record $28.64 million.

The $232 million total from the auction, including commission, marked the third consecutive night at which Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s met or exceeded pre-sale estimates for the annual spring sales. Of the 79 lots on offer, only five failed to sell.

Crichton’s collection, one of the season’s star estate sales, soared to $93.3 million — half again the pre-sale estimate — and achieved the highest ever total for a post-war collection, officials said.

While foreign buying has helped drive the market’s recovery, nearly three-quarters of the buyers were American, as expected for what Christie’s described as “a quintessentially American sale.”

Amy Cappellazzo, Christie’s international co-head of post-war and contemporary art, said the market, seemingly well on its way to recovery, now seemed “more sober.”

“There’s not this irrational exuberance,” she said, comparing it to the late years of the boom before the economic crash in 2008. “It’s strong, but selective.”

Well-heeled collectors showed enthusiasm, and readiness to pay, for rare works like Johns’ “Flag” and Andy Warhol’s “Silver Liz,” which fetched more than $18 million.

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Picasso’s 1932 ‘Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust’ is seen at Christie’s auction house in New York.

Related Link: Collectors and Auctioneers See Signs that Art Market is on the Verge of Solid Recovery

A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting of his mistress has sold for $106.5 million, a world record price for any work of art at auction.

“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which had a pre-sale estimate of between $70 million and $90 million, was sold at Christie’s auction house on Tuesday evening to an unidentified telephone bidder.

There were nine minutes of bidding involving eight clients in the sale room and on the phone, Christie’s said. At $88 million, two bidders remained. The final bid was $95 million, but the buyer’s premium took the sale price to $106.5 million.

Conor Jordan, head of impressionist and modern art for Christie’s New York, said he was “ecstatic with the results.”

“Tonight’s spectacular results showed the great confidence in the marketplace and the enthusiasm with which it welcomes top quality works,” he said.

The striking work of Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Therese Walter has been exhibited in the United States only once, in 1961 in Los Angeles to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Picasso’s birth. The painting, which measures more than 5 feet by 4 feet, shows a reclining nude figure with an image of Picasso in the background looking over her.

The painting had belonged to the late California art patron Frances Lasker Brody, who bought it in the 1950s. It had been kept in her family since then.

Part of the sale proceeds will benefit the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif., where Brody was on the board.

The previous record for a work of art at auction was $104.3 million for “Walking Man I,” a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti sold on Feb. 3 at Sotheby’s in London.
The previous high price for a Picasso work was $104.2 million for “Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice),” attained in 2004 at Sotheby’s New York.
On Wednesday, another rarely seen Picasso is slated to sell at Sotheby’s auction house. “Woman in a Hat, Bust” is a 1965 work inspired by Jacqueline Roque, the last love of Picasso’s life.
It is estimated to sell for $8 million to $12 million.

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NEW YORK, NY.- On March 23, the afternoon will be devoted to the classical works of Indian and Southeast Asian Art. Christie’s will offer an extensive selection
of nearly 200 lots of sculpture, paintings, ritual objects, and works of art from India, Tibet, Nepal and Southeast Asia from the notable collections.

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NEW YORK – The auction market is booming and, when it comes to contemporary art, it is charging on at an accelerated pace, as it did before the financial turmoil broke out in the autumn of 2008.

This week, those attending Christie’s and Sotheby’s evening sessions traditionally reserved for the most important works might have briefly thought that there never was a recession. No awareness of it appeared to linger in the bidders’ minds as they ran up paintings, drawings and sundry three-dimensional works to three times the estimate, or more.

It all culminated with the staggering $43.76 million paid at Sotheby’s on Wednesday for Andy Warhol’s “200 One Dollar Bills,” a silkscreen and pencil work dating from 1962.

This extraordinary outburst of bullishness was the upshot of a two-part play in which Christie’s session on Tuesday served as a launching pad to Sotheby’s superior sale.

Red More at http://www.nytimes.com