April 10, 2013, 11:41 am
SALE: Jewels
LOCATION: Christie’s and Sotheby’s New York
DATE: April 16 (Christie’s) and April 17 (Sotheby’s)
ABOUT: Next week, Sotheby’s will auction off a rock it calls “the most important white diamond ever to appear at auction in the Americas.” The massive, 74.79-carat stone is pear-shaped, D-color, and “potentially flawless” according to the auction house. It alone could bring $9-12 million of the $35 million estimated to come out of the April 17 sale at the house’s York Avenue headquarters. Continue Reading
April 3, 2013, 10:54 am
SALE: Antique and Vintage Timepieces
LOCATION: Antiquorum New York
DATE: April 10
ABOUT: Watch lovers will descend on New York next week for Antiquorum’s vintage timepiece sale. In addition to the standout cover lot, a 1951 Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 in pink gold (est. $400,000-600,000), the sale includes a number of timepieces made by the legendary Danish watchmaker Svend Andersen.
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March 28, 2013, 4:00 pm
Christie’s is about to sell a really big egg. The auction house will offer a fossilized elephant-bird egg from Madagascar at its travel and science sale on April 24 in London (at its South Kensington outpost). The fossil is a foot long and about nine inches in diameter, according to the Associated Press, and could bring almost $50,000. Continue Reading
March 27, 2013, 1:14 pm
The art, antiques, and collectible auction house Cottone, in Geneseo, N.Y., surpassed expectations at its two-day fine art sale this past weekend. A 1920 William Wendt landscape painting of sycamore trees, “Patriarchs of the Grove,” doubled its high estimate to fetch $300,000. Meanwhile, an impressionistic Manhattan skyline by Jonas Lie also toppled its $50,000-$80,000 presale estimate, bringing in a lofty $126,500. Finally, a set of late 19th-century bronze Russian warriors by Evgenii Lanceray also had a $50,000-$80,000 estimate, but did nearly just as well with their $115,000 total.
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March 27, 2013, 11:21 am
SALE: “Spring Photographs” and “The Curious Collector”
LOCATION: Phillips New York
DATE: April 2-3, 2013
ABOUT: The sprawling collection of Dr. Anthony Terrana kicks off Phillips’s photography sales next week, bringing 165 photographs that date back to the 19th century in an afternoon and evening auction on April 2.
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March 24, 2013, 11:04 am
Sotheby’s Paris has been under fire for the past few weeks from four Latin American countries, which have accused the auction house of putting illegally exported artworks on the block. Despite protests from Peru, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica, Sotheby’s went ahead with the sale over the weekend. However, fewer half of the 313 lots offered from the collection of Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller found buyers, and the sale total was a mere €10,296,300 ($13,375,000) — far below the $19-24 million estimate.
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March 20, 2013, 12:13 pm
SALE: “Other Graces: Photographs by Sante D’Orazio”
LOCATION: Christie’s New York
DATE: March 29-April 19
ABOUT: Before Terry Richardson and Tyler Shields burst onto the scene, there was Sante D’Orazio, the 56-year-old photographer who has, over the past three decades, carved out a pretty cozy niche for himself as one of the fashion world’s top chroniclers of celebrity, youth, and sex. He’s worked for nearly all of the Vogues, the men’s mags, and, in his spare time, has taken to shooting famous artists.
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March 20, 2013, 11:57 am
You know it’s Asia Week when ridiculous reports of ceramics selling at 10+ times their estimates start rolling in: Continue Reading
March 18, 2013, 5:59 pm
I’m currently parsing the full version of Clare McAndrew’s art market report. While I’m at it, check out the spread between average and median hammer prices at auctions in various countries*. It’s amazing how a few hundred multi-million dollar sales can skew a country’s average price. In places where you are less likely to see major sales, like the Sweden or Italy, the average price much more accurately reflects how much you are likely to pay for the “average” work of art. Continue Reading
March 14, 2013, 11:15 am
Art economist Clare McAndrew is getting ready to unveil her latest report — to be released at TEFAF tomorrow — on the state of the aart market in 2012. McAndrew, however, recapped her report today for the Art Newspaper. The big story is that China’s art market experienced a major slump last year, after several years of unprecedented growth, and the trend that got everyone really excited last year — that China had a larger art market than the United States in 2011 — has now reversed itself.
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