Head of Christ, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina (Spanish, Almedina, ca. 1475?–1536 Valencia) ca. 1505
Oil on wood: 16 1/2 × 12 in. (41.9 × 30.5 cm)
Purchase, Bequest of George D. Pratt and Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Logan, by exchange, 2014

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has made a savvy acquisition, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina’s Head of Christ from about 1505. The painting had appeared at Christie’s January 29, 2014 sale of Old Masters listed as by the Italian painter Jacopo De’Barbari, with an attribution confirmed by Dr. Bernard Aikema, according to the auction catalogue. It carried an estimate of $400,000-600,000, but “bidding” stopped at $300,000 and it failed to sell.

According to the Met’s Web site:

The attribution of the Metropolitan’s picture to Yáñez was first proposed by Checa Cremades (1992), who noted that a painting in a private collection in Madrid showing Christ flanked by Saints Peter and John shows the same use of gold dots in the halo and an identical decoration of medallions with Christ’s monogram (IHS) and rinceaux; the beards in both pictures also have the same form. That work is a touchstone of Yáñez’s work at its finest. Since the inscriptions identifying the two apostles are written in Spanish, it was presumably either painted for a Spanish patron resident in Italy or, more likely, in Valencia.

Of the iconography, the Met notes:

Bust-length depictions of Christ—both in painting and sculpture—were relatively common in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy and Spain. They relate to reputedly miraculous paintings derived from the image of Christ’s face that was said to have been imprinted on a cloth when a follower, Veronica, wiped his face on the way to Calvary, or a famous image, the Mandylion of Edessa, which was brought to France following the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

And of the artist himself, the museum says:

Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina was a key figure in laying the groundwork for Renaissance painting in Spain. The first certain notice of him is in September 1506, when, together with his contemporary, Fernando Llanos (active 1506–16) he was advanced payment for work on an altarpiece (retablo) dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian for the cathedral of Valencia. The two artists collaborated on other projects, including the same cathedral’s main altarpiece (retablo mayor), in 1507–10. In 1515 Yáñez traveled briefly to Barcelona, returned to Valencia by 1516, and in 1518–21 was working in his native Almedina in southeastern Spain. Between 1525 and 1531 he worked in Cuenca, before returning to Almedina, where he is documented from 1532 until 1537. Yáñez clearly spent time in Italy prior to his highly successful career in Spain and he rather than Llanos is usually identified with the “Ferrando Spagnuolo” who in April and August of 1505 collected money for work with Leonardo da Vinci on a mural depicting the battle of Anghiari in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence.

Lot 26. Andy Warhol (1928-1987), White Marilyn
signed, dated and inscribed ‘To Eleanor Ward Andy Warhol/62′ (on the reverse)
acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen: 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm.) Painted in 1962.
Estimate: $12-18 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s May 13, 2104 Evening Sale of Post War and Contemporary Art in New York is astonishing for the number of eight-figure estimated works – and for following the preceding night’s If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday sale at Christie’s. There are plenty of the predictable and bankable art world darlings – Warhol, Richter, Basquiat, Koons, Bacon and Rothko – but there are also seven works by Joseph Cornell, which is just shy of 10% of the 72 lots in the sale.

This will be a lengthier post than usual because there is so much good material – iconic pieces by Robert Gober, Christopher Wool, Gerhard Richter, Robert Ryman, Anselm Kiefer and others – enough to create the nucleus of an important collection. There are a few works by Brice Marden including the rich and sublime 5 (Note to My Self), based on his Cold Mountain series, an early and delightfully disorienting Sigmar Polke and a winning Cy Twombly (all shown below).

The Marden and Twombly are a couple of works from the personal collection of the late Frances “Frannie” Dittmer – there are additional works by Agnes Martin, Rudolph Stingel, Christopher Wool, and Martin Puryear – a philanthropist and noted art collector who died in an airplane accident this past February in Mexico. For many years she was married to Thomas Dittmer, who founded the financial firm Refco.  Frannie built up the company’s art collection during three decades. The Dittmers divorced in 1999.  The company was sold by Thomas and ultimately went into bankruptcy after its then-chief executive, Phillip Bennett, was indicted on fraud charges. The corporate collection was sold at auction in 2006.

A good deal of material is fresh to the market – though there are a few lots that were recently at auction, including Clyfford Still PH-1033 that sold for $19,682,500 ($17.5 million hammer price plus buyer’s premium) just two-and-one-half years ago – the present estimate is $15-20 million, which means the seller could lose money or just break even. However, since it carries a third party guarantee, it will sell. Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (712) was sold at Sotheby’s only one-and-one-half years ago for $17,442,500 ($15.5 million hammer price plus buyer’s premium) and now carries a hefty $22-28 million estimate – clearly Richter’s market is hotter than Still’s. This work also carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell.

The sale opens with 14 works owned by Lindy and Edwin Bergman, Chicago-based collectors of  Surrealism, Tribal art, and Post War painting, drawing and sculpture – including those seven by Cornell. According to the catalogue:

Friends and fellow collectors describe the Bergman residence as one filled with art that fostered conversation, contemplation and a sense of beauty; the couple simply collected the art they loved. “In spite of the extraordinary number and quality of the art objects (on every wall, table, shelf and even floor),” notes [historian Dawn] Ades, “the apartment was still very much a home, not a museum.” It was an attitude toward collecting that remains familiar in Chicago: “One thing that’s marked serious Chicago collectors over the years is that they go after things they’re interested in rather than the latest fad,” notes Lynne Warren, curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. “They don’t always stick with trends in art. They tend to have one-of-a-kind collections because they follow their inclinations.” (J. Hueber, “The In Crowd,” Chicago Reader, 31 October 1996).

Here are three of the seven Cornells:

Lot 2. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Untitled [Snow Maiden]
box construction–wood, paper, printed paper, glass, paint and dried flowers: 13 1/8 x 13¼ x 2 5/8 in. (33.3 x 33.6 x 6.6 cm.), Executed circa 1933.
Estimate: $800,000-1,200,000. Click on image to enlarge.

Cornell’s works from the 1930s possess an inexplicable amount of wonder and whimsy. It was during these years that, due to Cornell’s lack of formal artistic training, and his innate desire to catalogue and collect objects of unyielding interest to him, he was able to experiment with a variety of containers and methods of display, which would ultimately inform his mature works.

[…]

Glistening within her azure and marbled confines, Untitled [Snow Maiden] at first appears as a modestly unassuming construct culled from a vintage 1889 advertisement trade card and calendar for Taylor & Williams shoe store. However, this young child, lost in the snow, garners an exceptionally strong capability of pulling the viewer into gentle contemplation.

Lot 5. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall) with Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall: Working Model Based Upon “To Have and Have Not”
wood box construction–wood, glass, paint, tinted glass, mirror, foil paper, string, thread and printed paper collage
working model-paperboard folder with photographs, photomechanical reproductions, magazine excerpts, pamphlet and notes: 20½ x 17 x 3½ in. (52 x 17.7 x 8.8 cm.), Executed circa 1945-1946. Working model executed 1945-1970.
Estimate: $4-6 million. Click on image to enlarge.

From the catalogue:

On the evening of February 26, 1945, Joseph Cornell made his way back to his home at 3708 Utopia Parkway. It had been a wet afternoon, and the pavement was still glistening with the lingering drizzles of rain. Finding himself in his cluttered studio basement, Cornellin his characteristic and almost-incomprehensible scrawlpenciled down the days journey. Decided to go to Keiths, he began, referring to the Flushing, New York movie theater. Remembering the vacant, dark confines of the theater, Cornell grew skeptical about what he saw. Pure Hollywood hokum, the artist jotted down of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and the nascent Lauren Bacall, who he described as disappointing in her Hollywood debut (J. Cornell, quoted in D. Tashjian, Joseph Cornell: Gifts of Desire, Miami Beach, 1992, p. 121). And yet, through a stroke of instant desire, Cornell withdrew his initial assessment of the young actress in favor a growing fascination with her close-ups.

Lot 7. Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), Medici Slot Machine
wood box construction–wood, printed paper, collage, glass, metal, mirror and marbles: 14 x 11¼ x 4 in. (35.5 x 28.5 x 10.1 cm.), Executed in 1943.
Estimate: $2.5-3.5 million.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve. From the lot notes:

Executed in 1943, Medici Slot Machine from the celebrated eponymous series, is considered by many to be his greatest works, adapting three different Renaissance portraits as their sources, in this case Pinturicchios Portrait of a Boy from the Gemldegalerie in Dresden. Although Cornell was known to have almost never traveled beyond the bounds of New York, he was an inveterate traveler of the mind.

Lot 8. Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Poisson volant (Flying Fish)
signed with initials and dated ‘CA 57′ (on the largest element)
hanging mobile–painted sheet metal, rod and wire: 24 x 89 x 40 in. (60.9 x 226.0 x 101.6 cm.) Executed in 1957.
Estimate: $9-12 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve. From the catalogue:

Alexander Calder’s remarkable sculpture, Poisson volant (Flying Fish), amply demonstrates the breadth and diversity of the artist’s prolific career. The sleek black outline of the fish combined with the complex construction of animated elements that comprise the fish’s tail demonstrate the artist’s unique compositional ability, unsurpassed technical execution and sheer sense of joie de vivre in one memorable work. Although much of Calder’s work was defiantly non-referential, the fish motif was one that occurred throughout his life; from Steel Fish, one of the artist’s early standing mobiles he created in 1934, to the themed headboard he made for Peggy Guggenheim in 1945, and continuing with his large scale mobiles and stabiles, such as the present work and Yellow Whale created during the late 1950s, the symbolic nature of the fish seemed to encompass much of what Calder wanted to achieve in his unique brand of sculpture.

Lot 8. Alternate View. Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 15. Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), Abstraktes Bild (712)
signed, numbered and dated ’712 Richter 1990′ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 102¼ x 78½ in. (260 x 200 cm.), Painted in 1990.
Estimate: $22-28 million. Click on image to enlarge.

As note above, this work carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell. From the catalogue:

The present work, along with Richter’s other abstract paintings of the late 1980s and early 1990s, is the culmination of a five-decade-long investigation into the possibilities of painting. Having first covered a photorealist image with swirls of grey pigment in his early work, Table, 1962, Richter began in the 1980s to use a squeegee to spread thick, colorful streaks of paint over his canvases. Traditionally, abstract painting has pared back painting to its fundamental constituents, but for Richter it is from the buildup of countless layers of paint that his work derives its force. The rhythmic application and disruption of pigments with the squeegee is at once creative and destructive, a clash between conscious control and free, intuitive painting.

Lot 17. Christopher Wool (b. 1955), If You
signed, titled, numbered and dated ‘IF YOU (W33) WOOL 1992′ (on the reverse)
enamel on aluminum: 108 x 72 in. (274.3 x 182.8 cm.), Painted in 1992.
Estimate: $20-30 million.

This work carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell. From the lot notes:

Mediated by cinema, television and other forms of mass advertising, Wool’s generation involved the viewer in a kaleidoscopic sequence of appropriations. Reaching deeper into the art historical past, Wool appropriated catchphrases from the vernacular, re-imagined them as painted images, and, by doing so, called meaning into question. His stacked vocabulary disrupts understanding and works metaphorically both as an iconic symbol and cunning cipher. Despite myriad cultural references to mythic-sized word play to the history of the medium, Wool remains emphatically an artist in the traditional sense: “I always considered myself involved with painting. I can’t imagine someone seeing one of those and not realizing it’s a painting. I think, the way I used text was not didactic. I was not speaking about art, I was just making paintings. The text was more subject than anything else” (C. Wool, “Conversation with Christopher Wool,” with Martin Prinzhorn, Museum in Progress, 1997, http://www.mip.at/attachments/222).

Lot 19. Robert Gober (b. 1954), The Silent Sink
signed, titled and dated ‘R. Gober ’84 “The Silent Sink”‘ (on the reverse)
plaster, wire lath, wood and semi-gloss enamel paint: 20 x 35 x 27 in. (50.8 x 88.9 x 68.5 cm.), Executed in 1984.
Estimate: $2-3 million. Click on image to enlarge.

From the catalogue:

Created in 1984,The Silent Sink is an important, early example of Robert Gober’s most significant body of work, the sinks that he fabricated in New York between 1984 and 1986.

[…]

Robert Gober’s fascination with the domestic trappings of the family home began to emerge in the 1970s while he was building and selling miniature dollhouses. In 1983, he made his first sculpture of a sink, titled The Small Sink, which was a rather rough, unrefined version of the sinks he would begin in earnest in 1984. For the most part, Gober’s sinks are based on his childhood memories. He vividly recalled the porcelain washbasin from his grandparents’ home and a nearly identical version that his father had installed in his basement workshop.

[…]

For Gober, The Silent Sink seems to also symbolize the dialectical opposition of purification and bodily pollution, two key issues for a homosexual male artist raised in the strict doctrine of the Catholic Church who later witnessed the ravaging effect of HIV and AIDS in New York of the 1980s and 90s. If the sink stands as a modern repository for the elimination of dirt and waste, a modern convention of daily personal hygiene that renders a dirty body clean, then what does Gober’s tapless, pipeless, [waterless] “silent” sink signify?  It seems to issue forth from some nightmarish dream, in which the dirty body can never be cleansed, and may point to the inability of the body’s immune system to eradicate diseases like the AIDS virus from the body.

Lot 20. Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards
signed, titled, inscribed and dated ’3 Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards Francis Bacon 1984 left panel’ (on the reverse of the left panel); signed, titled, inscribed and dated ’3 Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards Francis Bacon 1984 center panel’ (on the reverse of the center panel); signed, titled, inscribed and dated ’3 Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards Francis Bacon 1984 right panel’ (on the reverse of the right panel)
oil on canvas, in three parts: each: 78 1/8 x 58¼ in. (198.3 x 148 cm.) Painted in 1984.
Estimate on Request (in the region of $80 million). Click on image to enlarge.

This work carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell.  This work is intriguing within Bacon’s oeuvre because the subject doesn’t seem tormented – certainly not like the screaming popes. From the catalogue:

Painted in 1984, Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards is a celebration of what was probably the most important and significant relationship of Francis Bacon’s life. The subject of this painting is John Edwards, a bar manager from the East End of London, who Bacon had met a decade earlier and who went on to become one of the artist’s closet and most trusted companions. Across its three panels, Bacon records with his characteristic verve and painterly flourishes the lithe figure of Edwards dressed in a simple outfit of a white shirt and grey pants. Locating his subject in an ethereal arena-like space, Bacon focuses attention on Edwards’ soft features, infusing each brushstroke not with angst and fear, as he had done in his earlier portraits, but with a considered sense of warmth and serenity that was to become the hallmark of his later work.

Lot 23. Andy Warhol (1928-1987) Race Riot
signed and dated ‘Andy Warhol 64′ (on the overlap of the upper left panel)
acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, in four parts: overall: 60 x 66 in. (152.4 x 167.6 cm.), Painted in 1964.
Estimate on Request. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has an ownership interest in this lot. From the catalogue:

In the first days of May 1963, the long, burgeoning but also often unseen struggle for civil rights in the United States suddenly exploded into full public view. All at once, it seemed, stark and disturbing images of young American black men, women and children being assaulted by fire-hoses and police attack dogs on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, began appearing across the world’s media engines when a peaceful organized mass protest against Southern segregation laws turned violent and ugly.

The result of these events, and of the shocking images they generated, was that almost overnight one of the great lies about America–the so-called “land of the free”–was made plain for all to see. Suddenly, the discomforting truth that, at the heart of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically advanced society–the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world”–lay an entire race of its own citizens who were themselves not free, but legally and violently oppressed by its rulers, was graphically and embarrassingly exposed.

Lot 28. Jeff Koons (B. 1955) Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Train
stainless steel and bourbon: 11 x 114 x 6½ in. (27.9 x 289.6 x 16.5 cm.)
Executed in 1986. This work is the artist’s proof from an edition of three plus one artist’s proof.
Estimate on Request. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve. Talk about fetishizing … from the lot notes:

Jeff Koons’s Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Train stretches nine and a half feet, a silvery seam of industrial nostalgia: it takes the form of a vintage locomotive and its carriages. This is a subject that taps into the pioneer history of the United States of America. It channels the glamor of a bygone era, an elegy to the ages of steam and steel. Its appearance mimics that of the lavish centerpieces that would have adorned the formal table of a Duke, a Frick or a Carnegie. And yet this is not Tiffany or Fabergé silver: instead, it is stainless steel. The train is made of the same practical material that underpinned the expansion of the USA, once linked by vital arteries of steel along which trains like this would trundle. Invoking old world glamor and filled with bourbon, a piece of found cultural ephemera transformed into indestructible, immaculate steel, Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Train taps into many chapters of American history, from the pioneers to Prohibition to Pop.

Jim Beam – J.B. Turner Train was made in 1986 and formed part of Koons’s second one-man exhibition, Luxury and Degradation, held at the International with Monument Gallery in New York. As the show’s title implies, Koons’s train is at once a celebration and a caveat, pointing to the exploitation that lay behind the successes of the speculators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries alike, be it through land sales, booze or advertising, while commemorating the heroic spirit of these frontiersmen and trailblazers.

Lot 28. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 30. Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Number 5, 1951 “Elegant Lady”
signed and dated ‘Jackson Pollock–51′ (lower left); signed again and dated again, ‘Jackson Pollock 51′ (lower center)
oil on canvas: 58 x 55½ in. (147.3 x 140.9 cm.), Painted in 1951.
Estimate: $12-18 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 31. Mark Rothko (1903-1970) Untitled
signed and dated ‘MARK ROTHKO 1952′ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 103 x 62½ in. (261.6 x 158.7 cm.), Painted in 1952.
Estimate on Request.

This is big, luscious and intoxicating. From the lot notes:

Painted in 1952, this towering, vibrant and deeply moving painting derives from the first years of Mark Rothko’s maturity–the period when, after many years of struggle and exploration, the artist had suddenly arrived at the “new vision” and “new structural language” that was to define his painterly practice for the rest of his life. A vast, extraordinarily painterly, turbulent and even, in places, tempestuous work, determined by its fascinating, busily worked surface of multiple layers of warm, radiant color, this painting is a vivid and gripping example of the full revelatory power of Rothko’s “new vision.” First developed between 1949 and 1950, this “vision” was the realization of what fellow New York School artist, Robert Motherwell, once famously called Rothko’s “genius” in creating an entirely new “language of feeling” solely from the painting of only a few, separate, and at the time, shockingly empty, rectangular fields of color.

Lot 34. Barnett Newman (1905-1970) Black Fire I
signed and dated ‘Barnett Newman 61′ (lower right)
oil on canvas: 114 x 84 in. (289.5 x 213.3 cm.), Painted in 1961.
Estimate on Request.

I’m not a Barnett Newman “zip painting” fan, for the most part, but this is a significant work from a defining period:

Black Fire I is a sublime Abstract Expressionist masterpiece that perfectly captures Barnett Newman’s radically reductive and uncompromising aesthetic. It represents a significant group of works painted in black pigment on exposed canvas that Newman created between 1958-1966, of which only three remain in private collections. The other paintings are currently housed in major international museum collections; they are: White Fire II (1960, Kunstmuseum Basel); Noon-Light (1961, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA); Shining Forth (To George) (1961, Centre Pompidou, Paris); The Station (1963, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); and Newman’s monumental, fourteen-part series The Stations of the Cross (1958-66, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C). The Zen-like simplicity of Black Fire I embodies the spirituality, grandeur and solemnity that define all of Newman’s greatest works. The stark black palette, luminous raw canvas and austere structure emerged with The Stations of the Cross, which slowly came to fruition over nine years. Painted in 1961, Black Fire I was created during a period of refrain from this project while Newman came to terms with the sudden death of his much-loved younger brother, George. Coaxed out of depression by a close friend who encouraged him to keep working, Newman negotiated his emotions through the language of abstraction. In doing so, he chose to continue the theme of dynamic tension between light and dark that was first established in the Stations.

Lot 35. Clyfford Still (1904-1980) PH-1033
signed and dated ‘Clyfford 11-29-76′ (lower right); signed again and titled ‘Clyfford PH-1033′ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 93½ x 83 in. (237.4 x 210.8 cm.), Painted in 1976.
Estimate: $15-20 million.

As noted above, this work carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell.

Lot 36. Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) Untitled
acrylic and oil stick on canvas: 68 x 103 in. (172.7 x 261.6 cm.), Executed in 1981
Estimate: $20-30 million. Click on image to enlarge.

This painting was purchased by the present owner in 1982, one year after it’s creation, and has not been publicly shown since:

Executed on canvas and on a scale akin to the wall expanses he had previously utilized on the street of downtown New York City, Untitled is a masterpiece from Basquiat’s most inspired period, created at the precise moment in Basquiat’s career when he was channeling the raw energy of his street art into the medium of fine art. Untitled captures all of the unharnessed talent and graffiti imagery that first garnered Basquiat attention during his SAMO days, in a richly wrought work worthy of the artist’s place as one of the most iconic artists of the twentieth century. Acting as an almost subconscious nod to how far he had come from his graffiti days on the gritty streets of New York City, Basquiat tagged a scrawl of gold spray paint along the side of his warrior’s face, which, along with the repetition of his crown motif, acts as symbols of sorts reflecting his feelings of personal triumph. With the victorious figure emerging from a warm and glowing background, Untitled would seem to capture the particular sentiments of Basquiat at this time of his life.

Lot 37. Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Figure Turning
titled and dated ‘Figure Turning 1962′ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 78 1/8 x 57 in. (198.4 x 144.7 in.), Painted in 1962.
Estimate: $20-30 million.

This work carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell.

Lot 39. Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Untitled XXXI, signed ‘de Kooning’ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 54 x 60 in. (137.1 x 152.4 cm.), Painted in 1977.
Estimate: $8-12 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 41. Robert Ryman (b. 1930), Mission, signed, titled and dated ‘Ryman80 “Mission”‘ (on the overlap)
oil and rust preventative paint on canvas with four painted metal bolts and fasteners: 38½ x 36 in. (97.7 x 91.4 cm.)
Painted in 1980.
Estimate: $2.5-3.5 million. Click on image to enlarge.

This is the first of two Ryman paintings in the sale:

Both rigorous and radical, Robert Rymans entirely unique body of work is, above all, a celebration of the act of painting and of paint itself. Executed in 1980, the year of Ryman’s first internationally touring solo show, Mission exemplifies the integrity of the Tennessee-born artist’s ambition. A rare example of Ryman charging the underlying surface with an emotive color, Mission resonates with aesthetic and conceptual intensity. Interweaving, overlapping strokes of white paint play upon a deep, rusty red ground, creating a vibrant, shimmering white form in a marriage of grace and gravitas. Each slender, writhing white brushstroke is integral to the whole mass yet is not quite consumed by it; rather, the individuality of their shape, weight, direction and movement are emphasized by the smoothness and richness of the dark background as well as the strict linear confines of the square canvas upon which they dance. Created shortly after Ryman began to first integrate the system of hanging into the compositional whole, Mission embraces its spatial surroundings via its painted metal supports. Used for both formal and practical effect, they serve to highlight the works strong, almost sculptural presence.

Ryman’s work emphasizes that painting can be a performance in itself, and that its essential material components, its medium and its structural support, also deserve to take center stage.

Lot 42. Sigmar Polke (1941-2010), Familie II, signed and dated ‘Polke 66′ (on the reverse)
emulsion on canvas: 39 3/8 x 41 in. (100 x 104 cm.), Painted in 1966.
Estimate: $7.5-9.5 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve:

Rather than revealing by creating tonal areas that would ensure legibility, Polke uses his [raster] dots to encrypt the image. Unsparing in his parodying of Roy Lichtenstein’s more unified design of clear and crisp images, Polke’s use of Lichtenstein’s formal device is hauntingly murky. In contrast to Lichtenstein – who uses thick contour lines and high contrast in value, color and saturation to foreground shapes as in advertisements and comics – Polke compresses his image and substitutes for contour lines strongly demarcated shifts in value. Polke’s dots blur the image through his meshing of irregular dots, conjoined or absent, an artistic practice that emphasizes the artificial construction of the image. Polke’s erudite, but skeptical approach, opens art toward the mechanical processes of the every-day, but in a way that erases effect, evacuates sentimentality and tentatively acknowledges memory.

Lot 46. Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Untitled, signed and dated ‘Cy Twombly 64′ (lower center)
oil, wax, crayon and graphite on canvas: 39 3/8 x 43¼ in. (100 x 109.8 cm.), Executed in 1964.
Estimate: $5-7 million. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve.

Lot 49. Brice Marden (b. 1938), 5 (Note to My Self), signed, titled and dated ’5 (NOTE TO MY SELF) 1987-8 B. Marden’ (on the reverse)
oil on linen: 84 x 60 in. (213.3 x 152.4 cm.), Painted in 1987-1988.
Estimate: $5-7 million.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve:

A celebration of the quiet beauty of color and form, 5 (Note to My Self) is composed of a series of the artist’s enigmatic “glyphs,” meandering linear forms that he places on a monochromatic background of dark maroon-red pigment. Simple and enigmatic, these motifs are comprised of a series of dark lines that the artist allows to roam across the surface of the canvas, their final form designated by a series of angular twists and turns. Here, Marden places them in a loose grid pattern comprised of three rows of three, with each jostling for attention alongside their neighbor. Some have likened this formation to Chinese calligraphy, a graphic form which had interested Marden ever since a visit to China three years before this work was painted. These calligraphic forms are regarded by some scholars to be the high point of the artist’s oeuvre, with the present work being recognized as an exemplary example.

Lot 51. Robert Ryman (b. 1930)
Painting measuring 10¾” x 11″ with white and green shapes and signed five times in neutral at the lower left
signed and dated five times ‘RRyman61′ (lower left); titled ‘Painting measuring 10¾” x 11″ with white and green shapes and signed five times in neutral at the lower left” in black pen, center right’ (on the reverse)
oil and gesso on unstretched linen canvas in artist’s frame, canvas: 10¾ x 11 in. (27.3 x 27.9 cm.), artist’s frame: 14 x 14 x 7/8 in. (35.5 x 35.5 x 2.2 cm.), Executed in 1961.
Estimate: $600,000-800,000. Click on image to enlarge.

Christie’s has guaranteed this lot, which means they own it if it fails to make the reserve. This work is also from the collection of Frances Dittmer:

Robert Ryman’s vigorous and evocative work belongs to a series of intimately-scaled, canvases that he painted between 1958 and 1962. A crucial, fertile period, this era was marked by an exceptional freedom of handling and a certain painterly exuberance, in which Ryman developed the rigorous tenets of a mature style that would consume him for the next five decades. In this early era, Ryman produced a series of small, brilliant works of white pigment upon bare, unstretched canvas, in which the surrounding edges were left untouched and often reveal the selvedge edge of plain linen. True to this era, this particular painting displays a soft wash of white that has been thinned down so as to appear nearly translucent in some areas, rendered with a confident, expressive touch that feels at once strong and subtle. The edges of this interior cloud-like form are scumbled in a bold manner that directly contrasts the bareness of the raw canvas. Within this intimate work, Ryman’s highly restricted process is laid bare, in the application of white paint upon a square canvas, so that the artist’s poignant gesture and expressive mark-making become the subject of the painting itself.

During this formative period, Ryman sometimes innovated with color, but found himself continually “painting out” the different hues with white, and eventually decided upon white as the only effective way to allow the inherent physical qualities of the paint-texture, density, light and reflectivity-to speak for themselves.

Lot 67. Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945), Beschwert sind die östlichen Himmel mit Seidengewebe… The Eastern Skies are Laden with Silk…
oil, emulsion, shellac, resin, ashes, hair and coated branches on lead laid down on canvas: 82 5/8 x 220 3/8 in. (209.8 x 559.7 cm.), Executed in 2004.
Estimate: $2-3 million. Click on image to enlarge.

From the catalogue:

A massive, desolate winter landscape, lacerated by diagonal paths that lead the eye to a high horizon line over which hovers a handwritten inscription written into the pale sky, Anselm Kiefer’s epic painting lays bare an undeniably compelling beauty rising amid the ravages of historical time. Both a universal and specific story, the words, “Beschwaert sind die östlischen Himmel mit Seidengewerbe” (“The eastern skies are laden with silken twine”) are Paul Celan’s, whose 1944 poem “Septemberkrone,” inspired Kiefer to create this searing evocation of historical memory. Kiefer’s imagery, like Celan’s, is both allegorical and literal, beckoning the viewer to join in a conscious act of collective memory, while also exploring individual unconscious associations. This grand-scale work is also about nature and landscape as metaphor. Drawing upon allegorical imagery, Celan’s poem literally traces the course of the woodpecker as it weaves silken threads through trees and pumpkin fields. Literal, too, are Kiefer’s materials. Thickened white, grey and flesh-colored oil paint is overlaid with broken branches on lead blackened with ash and paint. Skeins of bundled hair course through the impasto. Like Celan, Kiefer’s imagery is not only specific, but also replete with allusion. While Celan’s woodpecker is associated in mythology with the god of war, Kiefer’s barren snow-covered field is its reversal, an evocation of war’s effects. The branches are broken, shaped into mirror images of Celan’s verse. The ‘silken twine’ has lost its suppleness; scorched and stiff, it stands for “autumn’s runic weave,” a phrase from the poem that augurs autumnal death, resonating with the stream of broken branches, so many runes – mysterious written incantations – strewn over the forsaken terrain.

The author of “Septemberkrone,” Paul Celan, was the only surviving member of a Romanian Jewish family that was deported and subsequently exterminated in a Nazi concentration camp. The traumas suffered by his family – his father died of typhus and his mother was shot and Celan himself suffered in a labor camp for eighteen months (and, indeed would take his own life years later) – produced some of the most haunting Germanic poetry ever written. “It seems that war continued to live next to and in Celan to an unbearable degree” (B. A. Kaplan, Unwanted Beauty: Aesthetic Pleasure in Holocaust Representation, Urbana and Chicago, 2007, p. 19).

Lot 34. JEFF KOONS B.1955 POPEYE
signed, dated 2009-2011 and numbered 3/3 on the underside of Popeye’s right foot
mirror polished stainless steel with transparent color coating: 78 x 51 3/4 x 28 1/2 in. 198.1 x 131 x 72.4 cm.
Executed in 2009-2011, this work is number three from an edition of three plus one artist’s proof.
Estimate: $25-35 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $25 million ($28,165,000 with the buyer’s premium).

At their Evening Sale of Contemporary Art March 14, 2014, Sotheby’s had no hope of matching or exceeding Christie’s record breakjing $745 million haul of the night before, but they did manage to bring in $364,379,000 - of the evening’s 79 lots (following the withdrawal of two works), 10 failed to sell.  The sale was stuffed with blue chip works by bankable names – Warhol, Basquiat, Rothko, De Kooning, Diebenkorn, Calder, Twombly, Koons, Grotjahn, Richter and …

The first 19 lots came from the collection of Adam Sender, of whom Bloomberg News says was “one of the first hedge-fund managers to get serious about contemporary art … [and has now put] much of his collection on the auction block after shutting his firm Exis Capital Management Inc. … Todd Levin, director of New York-based Levin Art Group, said he helped Sender assemble the bulk of the collection from 1998 to 2008.” 

The sale, delayed some 20 minutes (allegedly because of Obama’s motorcade), opened with Raymond Pettibone’s No Title (Mimicked In Its …) estimated at $500,000-700,000, shot to $1.1 million ($1,325,000 with the buyer’s premium), followed by Glenn Ligon’s The Period, which saw aggressive bidding to a hammer of $520,000 ($629,000 with the buyer’s premium), against an estimate of $300,000-400,000. Richard Prince, whose market had been in a slump, recovered some of his market momentum, which continued with Untitled (Cowboy) - the work shot past its $1.5 million high estimate to make $2.6 million ($3,077,000 with the buyer’s premium).

Rosemarie Trockel’s Untitled, a knitted work that included Playboy Bunny heads, established a new record for the artist at $4.3 million ($4,981,000 with the buyer’s premium), more than doubling the $2 million high estimate. Richard Prince’s Driving Me Crazy “joke painting” from 1988, estimated at $1.5-2 million, continued the artist’s market redemption by hammering form$2.2 million ($2,629,000 with the buyer’s premium). Lot 8, Martin Kippenberger’s Untitled, beat it’s $4 million high estimate during fevered bidding to make $4.8 million ($5,541,000 with fees), while John Baldessari’s Commissioned Painting: A Painting by Edgar Transue from 1969, jet crept over it’s $2 million low estimate to make $2.1 million ($2,517,000 with fees).

An early Dan Flavin, Alternate Diagonals of March 2, 1964 (to Don Judd), established a new artist’s record at $2.6 million ($3,077,00 with fees) – past the $1.2 million reserve price and the $2 million high estimate, and underbid David Zwirner, according to The Art Newspaper’s Charlotte Burns. Sarah Lucas’ installation, Ace in the Hole (below), made $750,000 ($905,00 with fees), while Chris Ofili’s Afrodizzia struggled to make $1.3 million ($1,565,000 with fees), against a $2 million low estimate.

The Basquiat Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta (below), opened at $19 million and hammered for only $21 million ($23,685,000 with fees), which seemed anticlimactic. Lot 23, the six Warhol self portraits (below) – the “first time on the market” according to the auctioneer – came with an irrevocable bid (a guaranteed sale). It opened at $23 million and crept ever so slowly to $26,750,000 ($30,125,000 with fees), while the Mark Rothko’s very dark Untitled, the first of the evening tanked at $5 million against a $6 million low estimate – the Willem De Kooning’s Large Torso sculpture fared  similarly, failing at $2.8 million versus a $3.5 million low estimate. Willem de Kooning’s Untitled, estimated at $18-25 million, bombed at $16.5 million.

Mark Rothko’s Untitled, estimated at $8-12 million, buoyant in reds, oranges and yellows, from 1950, was decidedly more appealing and went for $10,750,000 ($12,205,000 with fees). It was followed by lot 30, the early Ryman (below), which made $2.4 million ($2,853,000 with fees), continuing to solidify the artist’s market bona fides. Andy Warhol’s 12 Mona Lisas (Reversal Series), estimated at $10-15 million, just made its low estimate ($11,365,000 with fees), followed by the Prince Nurse painting below, which hammered just under the $3 million low estimate at $2.8 million (3,301,000 with fees). The Koons Popeye was met with little auction room drama, opening at $23 million and going for $25 million ($28,165,000 with fees).

Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park #20 of 1969, for which there is a dedicated video, was estimated at $9-12 million. It opened at $7 million and sold for the low estimate ($10,245,000 with fees).Robert Rauschenberg’s Combine from 1954, a mix of oil, charcoal, newspaper, canvas and fabric collage, lightbulb and two glass radiometers on nailed wooden structure, being sold by the Paul Taylor Dance Company (which has owned the work since 1964), estimated at $5-7 million, also just made the low estimate, selling to Larry Gagosian ($5,765,000 with fees). 

Jackson Pollock’s 1952 Black and White Painting, estimated at $8-12 million, struggled to make a hammer price of $7.5 million ($8,565,000 with fees). Willem de Kooning’s Montauk III  from 1969, last at auction in November 2010 and estimated at $10-15 million, hammered at $9 million ($10,245,000), while Cy Twombly’s Untitled from 2003, a white acrylic, oil and wax crayon on a buff handmade paper, estimated at $600,000-800,000, made the high estimate ($965,000 with fees). From Koon’s Equilibrium series comes Three Ball 50/50 Tank (Spalding Dr. JK Silver Series, Wilson Home Court, Wilson Final Four), estimated at $4-6 million – unlike to version that sold at Christie’s earlier this week, this one went unsold at $3.75 million.

Mark Grotjahn’s Untitled (Red Orange Brown Black Butterfly 560) from 2005, a colored pencil on paper work estimated at $800,000-1,200,000, made $1.1 million ($1,325,000 with fees). More results below.

Lot 17. SARAH LUCAS B.1962 ACE IN THE HOLE
four bunnies (kapok, wire, tights, stockings, clamps, four chairs) and a baize card table
dimensions variable
Executed in 1998, this sculpture is unique.
Estimate: $600,000-800,000. This lot sold for a hammer price of $750,000 ($905,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue notes:

Ace in the Holecomes from Lucas’ renowned series of “Bunny” assemblages that she began in 1997: sculptural tableaux that incorporate stockings stuffed with cotton and wire, and shaped into the lower torso and legs of the female anatomy … Affixed to their chair supports by clamps, the mannequins sit lifelessly in sexually suggestive positions; they are framed in a pyramidal configuration by the fourth figure whose chair rests atop a felt card table at the center of the scene.

The symmetry of the models’ arrangement recalls the face of a playing card, their red and black tights mirroring the standard color palette of a loaded deck.

 

Lot 20. JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT 1960 – 1988 UNDISCOVERED GENIUS OF THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA
titled, acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on five joined canvases overall: 49 x 185 1/2 in. 124.5 x 471.2 cm. Executed in 1983.
Estimate on Request.
Click on image to enlarge.

From the lot notes:

Beyond the complexity of its unnerving formal harmony lies a multivalent chronicle of African-American history, archetypal of Basquiat’s exploration into the psychology of the collective diaspora. Just as the most significant History Paintings depicted rapt moments of intense unrest, Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta records the historical struggles permeating Basquiat’s African-American roots, communicated through the particular lens of his own biography. Drawing from an encyclopedic breadth of iconographic inspirations such as literature, music, science and anatomy, the present work possesses an intricate multiplicity that instantly arrests but rewards persistent re-evaluation.

Lot 23. ANDY WARHOL 1928 – 1987 SIX SELF PORTRAITS
each signed and dated 86 on the overlap, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas each: 22 x 22 in. 56 x 56 cm.
Estimate: $25-35 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $26,750,000 ($30,125,000 with the buyer’s premium).
Click on image to enlarge.

From the catalogue:

This acclaimed series of final portraits was first unveiled by Anthony d’Offay at his London gallery in July 1986, the first and only show in Warhol’s career dedicated to the theme of self-portraiture. The gallerist recalls the genesis of the series: “I realised two things: first that Warhol was without question the greatest portrait painter of the 20th century, and secondly that it was many years since he had made an iconic self-portrait. A week later I visited Warhol in New York and suggested to him an exhibition of new self-portraits. A month later he had a series of images to show me in all of which he was wearing the now famous ‘fright wig’. One of the images not only had a demonic aspect but reminded me more of a death mask. I felt it was tempting fate to choose this image, so we settled instead on a self-portrait with a hypnotic intensity.” (Anthony d’Offay cited in Exh. Cat., Andy Warhol, Self Portraits, Kunstverein St. Gallen, Kunstmuseum, 2004, p. 131)

Lot 30. ROBERT RYMAN B.1930 UNTITLED, signed & dated 64 twice on the reverse
 New Masters vinyl polymer paint on aluminum: 18 x 18 x 7/8 in. 45.7 x 45.7 x 2.2 cm.
Estimate: $1.8-2.5 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $2.6 million ($2,853,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

The unconventional and highly rare aluminum support of Untitled has a metallic quality that glints through the ridges and recesses of the thickly applied pigment. As opposed to a canvas ground, the metal presents an impenetrable surface for the paint to rest upon, thereby actively encouraging the accumulation of dense impasto. Reflecting the light ever so subtly, this metallic underlayer presents the perfect coloristic counterbalance to the striking and impressive vibrancy of Ryman’s red and the cool elegance of his much beloved white. The pronounced texture of each swathe of pigment conveys the narrative of the painting’s creation, and while the swirling quality of the white pigment formally recalls the impassioned outbursts of artistic energy so distinctive to masters of Abstract Expressionism such as Willem de Kooning, there is no agenda of self-expression here. Instead of communicating emotion, Untitled communicates a pure materiality that affords the viewer the opportunity to experience it as both painting and sculpture.

Lot 32. RICHARD PRINCE B.1949, MILLIONAIRE NURSE
signed, titled and dated 2002 on the overlap
inkjet print and acrylic on canvas: 58 x 36 in. 147.3 x 91.4 cm.
Estimate: $3-4 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $2.8 million ($3,301 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

The source image for the present work was the cover of the eponymous 1965 novel by Katherine Foreman, which Prince first scanned, and then enlarged and transferred onto canvas using an ink jet print, leaving a vestige of the anonymous facture that was the hallmark of his earlier oeuvre. After this initial act, however, Prince abandoned any notion of authorial anonymity and instead lavished the background of his canvas with the kind of unadulterated painterly release associated with his famed Abstract Expressionist forebears. Keeping the garish palette, yet radically altering the narrative of the book’s cover, Prince creates an entirely new and unique image in Millionaire Nurse. Through his layers of applied paint, all pictorial content aside from the body of the nurse and the blazing neon title are almost entirely erased, with only faint traces of the author’s name and the strap-line “Would her riches destroy her? – An exciting romance of medicine and high society” enigmatically remaining.

Lot 34. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

The image above embodies the intertwining of art, money and celebrity that is revolting to so many – the backdrop suggests this stainless steel cartoon character is on the red carpet at an awards ceremony, on a fashion show catwalk, and/or in a boxing ring. Fatuous, silly and self-absorbed. And then there’s the catalogue entry that includes contextualizing photos meant to indicate the significance of the Koons’ work – images of Michelangelo’s statue of David, the famous first century AD Laocoon, Constantin Brancusi’s 1927 Bird in Space and a 1960 Alberto Giacometti Walking Man.  To hone that point, there’s also a video about Popeye.

Oh, come on!

From the catalogue:

Jeff Koons has an eye for Pop. Heir to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Koons is the unmitigated twenty-first century successor to the Pop revolution of the 1960s. Celebrities, cartoon characters, paradigms of popular taste and archetypes of kitsch sentimentality all articulated in saccharine candy colors, faux-lux materials and high gloss comprise the quintessential Koonsian universe. This supreme eye for Pop, or indeed Pop-eye, is the very concept (and Duchampian linguistic pun) that underlines the powerful metaphoric significance of his most accomplished and major work of recent years – an immaculate and gleaming six and-a-half foot tall heroic statue depicting the swarthy cartoon sailor of the very same name.

Lot 36. CY TWOMBLY, 1928-2011 UNTITLED, signed and dated 1959
oil, wax crayon and pencil on canvas: 37 3/4 x 54 1/2 in. 95.9 x 138.4 cm.
Estimate: $3.5-4.5 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $3,750,000 ($4,365,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

Untitled is a vibrant response to Rome’s exuberance, and the rapture of the Mediterranean land and seascape. Compared to some of his earlier works executed during the first half of the 1950s, the present painting is lighter; the marks are more dispersed, allowing for a better appreciation of each individual element. Untitled also demonstrates an advanced level of lyricism, while presenting a more aggressive release of explicitly defiling disorder. To decipher Twombly’s idiosyncratic forms through a framework of conventional aesthetic values, however, is to ignore the intentionality behind their decisive ambiguity. Despite a residual yearning to decipher these written marks, Twombly’s visual language has neither syntax nor logic.

Lot 37. YVES KLEIN, 1928 – 1962, RÉLIEF ÉPONGE BLEU (RE 51), signed and dated 59 on the reverse
dry pigment and synthetic resin, natural sponges and pebbles on board:
40 3/4 x 40 3/8 x 3 1/2 in. 103.5 x 102.5 x 9 cm.
Estimate: $15-20 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $15 million ($16,965,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

Klein’s meteoric career—ended barely before it had truly begun—was devoted to a relentless search for an immaterial world beyond our own. To this end he developed modes of expression that fused together a sweeping array of profoundly held interests in aesthetics, nature and mysticism. Among these artistic dialects the Rélief épongesissue the most effective manifestation of the complex mysteries that filled the artist’s life. Forging the kernel of Klein’s epoch of immateriality, these unreal masterworks deliver the crescendo promised by the IKB, gold and roseMonochromes; and bring to life the enigmatic shadows of the Anthropométries. While the Monochromes invite the viewer into Klein’s world, this Rélief éponge advances out into the world of the viewer; whereas the Anthropométriesnarrate the trace of transient human presence, RE 51absorbs ancient creatures into the depths of its fathomless and immaterial blue. Although it may be indicative of some alien planetary landscape or the deepest ocean bed, the topography of RE 51 encapsulates the artist’s pure concept of an ethereal and intangible state.

Lot 40. GERHARD RICHTER, B.1932, BLAU, signed and dated 1988, and numbered 658 twice on the reverse
oil on canvas: 118 1/8 x 118 1/8 in. 300 x 300 cm.
Estimate: $25-35 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $25.5 million ($28,725,000 with the buyer’s premium)

From the catalogue:

Richter’s creation of Blau necessitated a conscious suspension of the artist’s artistic will and assertion of judgment. Over a protracted period of execution, the painting underwent multiple variations in which each new sweeping accretion of paint brought new color and textural juxtaposition that were reworked until the optimum threshold of harmonious articulation was reached. Within this process, grounds of arresting pigment were applied only to be effaced and drawn out by large track-like strokes. Although spontaneous in their lyrical grandeur, these overlaid marks were in fact cerebrally labored. Yet Richter holds no presuppositions in the devising of his abstract paintings: in his own words it is by “letting a thing come, rather than creating it – no assertions, constructions, formulations, inventions, ideologies” that Richter looks “to gain access to all that is genuine, richer, more alive: to what is beyond my understanding.” (Gerhard Richter, ‘Notes 1985’ in Hans-Ulrich Obrist ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings 1962-1993, p. 119)

Lot 41. CY TWOMBLY, 1928-2011, UNTITLED
acrylic on canvas: 84 5/8 x 65 1/2 in. 214.9 x 166.7 cm.
Executed in 2006.
Estimate: $9-12 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $9 million ($10,245,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

Twombly began to investigate the possibilities of his sweeping signature lasso loops in 1952 after a series of trips with Robert Rauschenberg to Northern Africa, Spain, Italy and France. There he became fascinated by the ancient forms of graffiti he found scrawled on historic monuments, making him question the connection between man’s place in the world and the physical records he leaves behind. On his return to America, Twombly was drafted into the army where he trained as a cryptographer, constantly examining and deciphering codes. Immersed in this cryptic, lexical sphere, at night Twombly would make drawings in the dark echoing the surrealist technique of automatic writing articulated in the drawings of Andre Masson, the ‘dream pictures’ of Joan Miró and the frottages of Max Ernst.

Lot 44. ANDY WARHOL, 1928 – 1987, BIG ELECTRIC CHAIR
acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas: 54 x 74 in. 137.2 x 187.9 cm.
Executed in 1967-1968, this work is stamped twice by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Estate of Andy Warhol and numbered PA57.011 on the overlap.
Estimate: $18-25 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $18.1 million $20,437,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

Nowhere else in Andy Warhol’s prodigious output does he more affectingly capture the metaphysical terror of living in the Technicolor Sixties than in Big Electric Chair. For the artist who singlehandedly defined the intense prismatic palette of Pop art, Big Electric Chair from 1967-1968 embodies the most daring and sophisticated deployment of color across all of Warhol’s most critically lauded Death and Disaster paintings. Exceptionally rare, it is one of only fourteen large-format depictions of the subject, of which the majority reside in major international collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and the Menil Collection in Houston. The present work is the sole Big Electric Chair that saw Warhol divide the canvas into three discrete fields of uniform color and silkscreen the surface twice—once in a dark purple and subsequently in a velvet green.

Lot 64. WADE GUYTON, B.1972, UNTITLED
Epson UltraChrome inkjet on canvas:
90 x 53 in. 228.6 x 134.6 cm.
Executed in 2006.
Estimate: $3.5-4.5 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $5.2 million ($5,989,000 with the buyer’s premium).

From the catalogue:

Microsoft Word is Guyton’s palette; the keyboard is his paintbrush. Guyton types, enlarges and duplicates the letter U in various attractive hues, positioning the resulting forms on his screen atop a JPEG of flames scanned from the dust-jacket of a book he can no longer recall. Treating these computer-generated shapes and digitally scanned found images as Duchampian readymades—forms unique for their minimalist, visual appeal—Guyton then prints the files on monumental swathes of primed canvas, folded in half to fit through the machine.

Nicolas Poussin, (French, Les Andelys 1594–1665 Rome), The Abduction of the Sabine Women, probably 1633–34. Oil on canvas. Accession Number: 46.160
Click on image to enlarge.

According to a press release from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a new Web program allows free download of 400,000 digital images for non-commercial use. This is in addition to the hundreds of Met exhibition catalogues that can be downloaded for free:

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today that more than 400,000 high-resolution digital images of public domain works in the Museum’s world-renowned collection may be downloaded directly from the Museum’s website for non-commercial use—including in scholarly publications in any media—without permission from the Museum and without a fee. The number of available images will increase as new digital files are added on a regular basis.

In making the announcement, Mr. Campbell said: “Through this new, open-access policy, we join a growing number of museums that provide free access to images of art in the public domain. I am delighted that digital technology can open the doors to this trove of images from our encyclopedic collection.”

The Metropolitan Museum’s initiative—called Open Access for Scholarly Content (OASC)—provides access to images of art in its collection that the Museum believes to be in the public domain and free of other known restrictions; these images are now available for scholarly use in any media. Works that are covered by the new policy are identified on the Museum’s [Web site] with the acronym OASC.

Vincent van Gogh, Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves, 1889, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

According to a press announcement, the National Gallery of Art has acquired more than five dozen French and American works of art from the estate of long time benefactor Paul Mellon, following the death of his widow Rachel “Bunny” Mellon on March 17, 2014.

From the announcement:

A highlight of the bequest is another major painting by Van Gogh: Still Life of Oranges and Lemons with Blue Gloves (1889). Currently undergoing conservation treatment, the painting will be on view June 7 in the Gallery’s West Building, French Galleries, with Van Gogh’s renownedThe Postman Joseph Roulin (1889), on loan from the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands.

Still Life with Bottle, Carafe, Bread, and Wine (c. 1862–1863) by Claude Monet is an intimate painting of a subject not usually associated with the artist. One of Monet’s earliest known paintings, the Mellons’ purchase of this work reflects their thoughtful and deeply personal approach to collecting art.

The Riders (c. 1885) by Edgar Degas depicts a group of jockeys on horseback, a subject favored by both Degas and Paul Mellon, a renowned racing enthusiast. This large, vibrantly colored canvas is an extraordinary complement to the many Degas waxes and drawings on the same subject, donated by Paul Mellon in his lifetime. The Gallery has the world’s third largest collection of works by Degas and, thanks to Mellon, the world’s greatest collection of this artist’s sculpture made during his lifetime.

Twelve exquisite oil sketches by Georges Seurat join four paintings and one drawing in the Gallery’s permanent collection. “Seurat died young and his body of work is relatively small compared to his impressionist and post-impressionist counterparts,” said Kimberly A. Jones, associate curator of French paintings. “These new works vastly enhance our holdings and position the Gallery as one of the strongest collections of his work in the United States.”

Among the nine American paintings in the bequest, two works by Winslow Homer—The Flirt(1874), a study for the Gallery’s Breezing Up, and School Time (c. 1874)—constitute especially important additions to the collection. A significant group of still lifes—two remarkable works by Raphaelle Peale and three by John Frederick Peto—strengthen the Gallery’s holdings in that genre. The bequest also included a major group of seven Homer drawings and watercolors, the most notable being Rustic Courtship (1874) and The Berry Pickers (1873), as well as a rare pastel on canvas by William Merritt Chase, Gathering Flowers, Shinnecock, Long Island (c. 1897).

Lot 16. Caspar Netscher (?Heidelberg 1639-1684 The Hague) Woman feeding a parrot
signed and dated ‘CNetscher. Ao. 16.66.’ (CN linked) (lower left)
oil on panel: 18 1/8 x 14 5/8 in. (46 x 37 cm.)
Estimate: $2-3 million.
Click on image to enlarge.

This elegant “Woman feeding a parrot was, until recently, among the most celebrated treasures of the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal, recognized for decades as one of Caspar Netscher’s greatest paintings and one of the undisputed icons of Dutch genre painting of the Golden Age,” according to the catalogue notes for this lot in Christie’s June 4, 2014, sale of Old Master Paintings in NewYork.  Restitution of works looted by the Nazis during World War II is an ongoing process and has brought to sale many works previously thought permanently off the market.  No doubt there will be more.  This work was restituted to the heirs of Hugo and Elisabeth Andriesse.

Of this lot, Christie’s notes:

Best-known today as a painter of exquisite, highly finished domestic interiors, Caspar Netscher in fact produced surprisingly few before abandoning the genre altogether around 1670 for the more lucrative field of portraiture. A Dutch painter of German origin, Netscher was probably born in Heidelberg in 1639. He trained first in Arnhem under Hendrik Coster, a little known still-life and portrait painter, before moving in 1654 to Deventer, where he entered the workshop of the greatest genre painter of the day, Gerard ter Borch. Netscher quickly learned Ter Borch’s technique of rendering the texture of costly materials, and he is known to have made very successful copies of his master’s most recent works: a signed copy of Ter Borch’s Parental Admonition (1654; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), dated 1655, is in Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha, for example. That such works were allowed to be fully signed by Netscher suggests the special place he held in his master’s studio.

[…]

As [Marjorie] Wieseman [author of the catalogue raisonné of the artist's paintings] observes, the birds were often associated with luxury and sensuality, and “their central role in scenes of women holding or feeding parrots hints at amorous or erotic elements.” Moreover, she adds, “a bird freed from its cage – in Netscher’s painting, lured away with a bit of sweet – was often a symbol of lost virginity, and was associated with an invitation to amorous dalliance,” a reading that seems hard to dispute in light of our young lady’s coquettish but bold and inviting gaze. Interestingly, Wayne Franits has cited instances in which “the presence of parrots…signifies the proper training of their mistresses.”

A superb preparatory drawing for the painting, in pen and bistre wash over black chalk underdrawing, is in the British Museum … The drawing, which was in the collection of Gabriel Huquier in Paris in the 18th century, is fully signed and dated 1666. Like his teacher Ter Borch, Netscher was an active draftsman and about 45 sheets from his hand survive. As with the study for Woman feeding a parrot, most of his drawings are modelli or compositional designs.

Lot 5. Pieter Brueghel II (Brussels 1564/5-1637/8 Antwerp) Peasants in an open wagon
oil on panel: 4½ x 9½ in. (11.5 x 24 cm.)
Estimate: $300,000-500,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

This delightful rendering of a raucous carriage ride was also recently restituted, in this case to the heirs of Hans Ludwig Larsen, having been in the Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, The Netherlands, since January 15, 1946.  From the lot notes:

This charming scene, showing a group of rowdy peasants en route to a wedding celebration, exemplifies the lighthearted and often humorous observations of everyday life for which Pieter Brueghel II was – and remains – renowned. Even in its small size, this vignette reveals a wealth of anecdotal detail: seven peasants have crowded into the rickety carriage, pressed together so that one at the front has to wrap his arms around his knees to fit inside, while the two nearest the viewer seem poised to fall backwards over the edge. At center, a particularly boisterous woman raises a wine jug high in the air, perhaps to keep it away from her obviously eager companion, who may have already had too much. Stumbling around the back of the cart, a man in a red cap with his back to the viewer rearranges the bridal gifts, aided by another fellow who moves a three-legged stool – a common motif in Brueghel’s paintings – out of the way. The cart, which might more usually have been drawn by a driver in an enclosed cab, is pulled by two sturdy horses that seem just to have felt the sting of their rider’s whip.

Lot 6. Jan Josefsz. van Goyen (Leiden 1596-1656 The Hague) A winter scene with skaters and a village beyond
signed and dated ‘I V GOIEN 1626′ (lower right), oil on panel: 12 5/8 x 19 7/8 in. (32 x 50.5 cm.)
Estimate: $400,000-600,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

As with the previous lot, this work too was recently restituted to the heirs of Hans Ludwig Larsen, having also been in the collection of the the Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, The Netherlands, since July 8, 1946.  From the catalogue:

Beginning in the mid-14th century and lasting through the mid-19th century, Northern Europe experienced extraordinarily cold and long winters, and relatively cool summers, a period of climatic change known as the “Little Ice Age”. The resulting snows and frozen waterways had a significant effect on everyday life. The Dutch quickly adapted, inventing a variety of winter activities which could provide outdoor amusement despite the bitter cold. By the 17th century, winter landscapes filled with frolicking figures such as the present panel had become a beloved staple of Dutch Golden Age painting.

Here, Van Goyen represents villagers skating on a frozen river beside a group of thatched houses. The town church is visible in the background, and charming vignettes abound. At far left, two children chase one another behind an elegantly dressed couple who may be their parents. Just to their right, four passengers huddle together for warmth inside a sleigh while the driver sits on the edge, watching his horse delicately negotiate its way across the ice. At right, another man bends over to adjust the straps on his skates, while at center, four men skate toward the viewer with varying levels of grace and skill. One of them rests a long, thin poll on his shoulder, which he could use both to keep his balance and to help himself out of the water if he should fall through the ice, a relatively common occurrence.

Llot 8. Studio of Bernard van Orley (Brussels c. 1488-1541) Christ on the Road to Calvary
oil on panel: 25¾ x 22 7/8 in. (65.5 x 58 cm.)
Estimate: $100,000-150,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

This, too, was restituted to the Larsen heirs, having been in the Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, The Netherlands, since January 15, 1946; it was confiscated by the German authorities following the occupation of The Netherlands, after May 1940.  

The painting’s authorship is in dispute, Max Friedländer considers it autograph, as did Ludwig Baldass in 1930.  However, JD Farmer:

considered this painting to be the work of a clearly identifiable hand distinct from Van Orley, yet very close to him. This artist, whom he christened “The Brussels Master of 1520,” tends to paint his figures with idiosyncratic, at times awkward poses and may have led a small, independent workshop that produced paintings most reminiscent of Van Orley’s style of the late teens, while demonstrating a familiarity with the master’s work through the thirties. Farmer hypothesized that The Brussels Master of 1520 may have even been related to Van Orley, suggesting the artist’s brother, Evrard, as a plausible candidate.

Raphael’s Spasimo di Sicilia (Prado, Madrid) serves as the chief form of inspiration:

Indeed, there are strong parallels between this painting and Raphael’s design, which Van Orley would have encountered when its cartoon was sent to Brussels to be woven as a tapestry for Cardinal Bibbiana between 1516 and 1520. The most immediate source for the present painting, however, was surely Van Orley’s own interpretation of Raphael’s design as it appears in the Northern artist’s Christ Carrying the Cross cartoon, which he created for Margaret of Austria’s “square” Passion tapestries of c. 1520-1522 (Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid), and which was later rewoven for the Alba Passion tapestries of c. 1525-1528 (Museé Jacquemart-André, Paris). Van Orley also took inspiration from the work of Albrecht Dürer, with whom he was personally acquainted: in 1520, Van Orley hosted a dinner party with Dürer as his guest. As in Dürer’s Christ Carrying the Cross from the Large Passion prints of c. 1497-1500, in the present panel the main focus is not Christ’s interaction with the swooning Virgin, but rather the miracle of the Sudarium, the holy cloth held by St. Veronica.

Lot 9. The Master of the Antwerp Adoration (active Antwerp c. 1505-1530), The Holy Family in a garden
oil on panel, circular: 23 5/8 in. (60 cm.) diameter, an approximately 1/8 in. (0.4 cm.) addition to the upper edge
Estimate: $250,000-350,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Yet another work restituted to the Larsen heirs, having entered the Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, The Netherlands, on the same day as the previous lot, this painting was originally part of an altarpiece that was divided, with this panel cut down from it original rectangular format.

When conceiving this composition, The Master of the Antwerp Adoration was likely inspired by Albrecht Dürer’s print of The Sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt … from the Life of the Virgin series, begun in 1500. As in Dürer’s woodcut, the Virgin sits in the foreground attended by angels and embroidering a garment on her lap. Also similar is the bearded Saint Joseph at her left, carving out a long piece of wood. In Dürer’s print, Joseph is surrounded by jovial putti who frolic about, picking up the shavings and placing them into a basket. In the Larsen painting, it is the Christ Child himself who assumes this role. 

The Master of the Antwerp Adoration has incorporated symbolic imagery in the painting in a manner typical of Netherlandish art of this period. The fanciful architecture in the background, together with the dense wood and columned structure on the right, suggest that the Holy Family resides within a hortus conclusus, that is, an enclosed, sacred precinct dedicated to the Virgin. Two angels fill silver pitchers with water from an elegant fountain in the courtyard, which together with the garden itself symbolize the immaculate purity of the Virgin. This imagery derives from the Song of Solomon as interpreted by Saint Bernard, who read the biblical love poem as an ode to the Virgin as the Bride of Christ. By the time panel was painted, the juxtaposition of the fountain, or “well of living waters”, the enclosed garden, and the Virgin was well-established in Netherlandish art. Indeed, it appears in Jan van Eyck’s famousMadonna at the Fountain of 1439 (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). In the present Holy Family in a garden, a peacock appears in front of the fountain. An exotic bird of paradise, it would have been understood in the artist’s time as a symbol of Christ’s immortality and the Resurrection. The cross formed by Saint Joseph’s plank and the wooden board beneath it is in no way accidental, but rather deliberately refers to Christ’s Passion. Likewise, the pincer in the foreground alludes to the tool that was used to remove the nails from the Cross after Christ’s death. Thus, within this everyday scene of familial tranquility and harmony, The Master of the Antwerp Adoration subtly alludes to Christ’s future sacrifice, creating a beautiful composition that rewards prolonged contemplation.

Lot 17. The Master of the Dominican Effigies (Florence, c. 1310-1350)
A triptych: central panel: The Madonna and Child Enthroned, with Saints Peter, Paul, Catherine of Alexandria and another Saint; the wings: The Flagellation of Christ; and The Crucifixion, with The Annunciation
tempera and gold on panel, in an integral tabernacle frame
open: 23 x 18 7/8 in. (59 x 47.9 cm.); closed: 23 x 10 7/8 in. (59 x 27.7 cm.)
Estimate: $200,000-300,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

From the lot notes:

The anonymous artist known as the Master of the Dominican Effigies is named for a panel showing Christ and the Virgin with seventeen Dominican saints and beati, or “blessed ones”, now in the Archivio di Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Recent scholarship has improved our understanding of this previously understudied painter, who appears to have been one of the most important figures in Florentine manuscript illumination in the second quarter of the 14th century. The Master’s style, which blends the influences of artists from the prior generation – such as Lippo di Benivieni and the Master of San Martino alla Palma – also looks to the work of some of his slightly older contemporaries, such as Bernardo Daddi and Jacopo del Casentino, resulting in what Professor Laurence Kanter describes as “an animated and highly personal expression of his own” (see L. Kanter et al., Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, New York, 1994, pp. 56-57).

[…]

The Master’s eponymous work can be dated to just after 1336 based on its inclusion of Maurice of Hungary, who had died that year, though the artist was certainly active well before then, probably from c. 1310. His last securely dated work is inscribed 1345, but a double-sided altarpiece in the Accademia, Florence (inv. 4633/4) may date to somewhat later. The present intimately-sized, portable triptych is a marvelous example of the miniaturist precision and narrative expression that characterizes the Master’s style. Datable to c. 1330, the triptych is a remarkable survival from an important phase of the artist’s career, showcasing his understanding of the achievements of Giotto and the founders of Tuscan painting.

Lot 29. Gerard ter Borch (Zwolle 1617-1681 Deventer)
A guardroom interior with a soldier blowing smoke in the face of his sleeping companion, a third looking on
oil on panel: 18½ x 14½ in. (47 x 36.8 cm.)
Estimate: $60,000-80,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

This is a very entertaining genre picture is by the talented Gerard ter Borch.  From the catalogue:

Likely originating in the work of Jacob Duck, the theme of a soldier being tickled awake was treated once more by Ter Borch in a composition dated to around 1656-1657 and now in the Taft Museum, Cincinnati … although in that instance the culprit takes the form of an attractive young woman. While such amusing scenes were intended to delight viewers, they were probably also meant as cautionary reminders of the importance of maintaining military vigilance. Indeed, despite the peace with Spain, the Netherlands remained vulnerable in the 1650s, especially along the German border, where forces spreading Counter-Reformation doctrine needed to be kept in check.

This Klimt/Schiele exhibition catalogue is one of more than 100 Guggenheim catalogues now available free online.

The Guggenheim Museum has going New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in posting more than 100 exhibition catalogues from the 1930s to the 1990s free, online.

The titles, most of which come from the 1960s to 1980s, include Alexander Calder: A Retrospective Exhibition; China: 5,000 Years, Innovation and Transformation in the Arts; Eva Hesse: A Memorial Exhibition; Futurism: A Modern Focus: The Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection: Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin and dozens of others.  Unlike many of the Met catalogues, which can be downloaded, the Guggenheim catalogues can only be read online.

Lot 52. FRANÇOIS BOUCHER, PARIS 1703 – 1770, AN ALLEGORY OF POETRY
oil on circular canvas: diameter: 23 1/4 in.; 59.1 cm.
Estimate: $300,000-500.000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Compared with Christie’s sale the day before, the offerings at the June 5, 2014 sale of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s in New York are a snooze.  An overabundance of uninteresting “school of” “attributed to” and “circle of” works.  The top two lots are allegorical images with putti by Boucher – still collectible in some corners, but of little appeal to me.  From the catalogue notes:

Both this and the following lot are endearing examples of the small scale and brightly lit allegorical pictures which were created by Boucher to decorate the homes, and more specifically, overdoors within the intricately carved boiserie paneling that was installed in many mid-18th century Parisian hôtels. Boucher often employed similar allegorical yet light hearted themes for such multi-paneled projects, as they brought a visual cohesiveness to the physical spaces which they occupied. 

This composition derives from a three-figure composition, also an Allegory ofPoetry, sold in the Mentmore sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, on 25 May 1977, lot 2443. A variant of that picture, generally ascribed to Boucher and Studio (signed and dated 1753), is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 69.155.2). In the present picture, as in the Mentmore version, the central infant Apollo holds a lyre, a traditional symbol of lyric poetry, as he crowns the infant Cupid with a laurel wreath; beside Cupid is a pair of doves. Furthermore, as in the Mentmore version, Cupid writes the following in his scroll:

Qu’il triomphe & regne à jamais / Entre les beaux Arts & la Glorie. / Elevons ce Heros du char de la Victoire / Au Trône de la Paix

Lot 53. FRANÇOIS BOUCHER, PARIS 1703 – 1770, AN ALLEGORY OF MUSIC, signed center left: f boucher
oil on circular canvas: diameter: 23 1/4 in.; 59.1 cm.
Estimate: $200,000-300,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Of some minor interest is this work by a follower of the very obscure Jan Mandyn, who often depicted phantasmagorical scenes a la Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch. There are no lot notes for this work.

Lot 9. FOLLOWER OF JAN MANDYN, THE HARROWING OF HELL
oil on panel: 17 3/4 by 23 3/4 in.; 45.1 by 60.3 cm.
Estimate: $25,000-35,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

A few decades ago, Gottfredo Wals experienced a burst of interest and collecting activity – that seems to have abated.  This serene and attractive work is half the size of the Bouchers and far more appealing – it should do well provided it’s not shopped out.

Lot 69. GOTTFRIED WALS, CALLED GOFFREDO TEDESCO, COLOGNE 1590/95 – 1638/40 NAPLES
AN ITALIANATE RIVER LANDSCAPE WITH SHEPHERDS WATERING THEIR FLOCK BENEATH A RUIN
oil on copper, in a painted tondo: 11 1/2 by 11 3/4 in.; 29.5 by 29.7 cm.
Estimate: $80,000-120,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

From the lot notes:

This landscape by Wals is a lovely example of his small circular paintings on copper, a format and medium that he seems to have favored.  Anke Repp, in her 1986 catalogue of the artist’s work, lists only nineteen autograph paintings, although the 17th century Flemish collector Gaspard de Roomer, who lived in Naples, is said to have owned no fewer than sixty paintings by Wals.1  The use of copper as a support allowed for exceptionally fine brushstrokes, lending a luminosity and radiance to the painted surface and providing a perfect vehicle for his subtle gradations of light and dark.  Wals’ landscape compositions were often laid out in distinct parallel planes incorporating simple naturalistic motifs such as farm buildings or overgrown ruins, with figures adding visual interest but never dominating.

Gottfried Wals, Ruins on a Riverbank, pen and brown ink on beige paper, 14.1 x 14.1 cm., Musée du Louvre, Paris, Inv 14523-recto. Photo: Thierry LeMage. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

The ruin depicted in this painting appears to be based on a drawing by Wals in the Cabinet des Dessins in the Musée du Louvre, although the artist has simplified two smaller arches in the drawing into a single larger one [left].

The attribution to Wals has been confirmed by Prof. Marcel Roethlisberger, following firsthand inspection (private communication to the owner).  It is impossible to establish any kind of chronology for Wals’ paintings, as there are no dated examples.  However, Prof. Roethlisberger is inclined to believe this is a later work, from the mid-1620s, given its very close relationship to, and even its debt to, the early output of the artist’s best student Claude Lorrain.

1.  See A. Repp, Goffredo Wals. Zur Landschaftsmalerei zwischen Adam Elsheimer und Claude Lorrain, Cologne 1985, p. 19, pp. 55-84; (the present work was unknown to her).

Lot 80. ANDRÉ-JEAN-ANTOINE DESPOIS, BORN FOISSY 1787, VIEW OF THE ÎLE BARBE, LYON
signed and dated middle right: Despois/1824 and inscribed on both the stretcher and back of frame: Despois L’Ile Barbe
oil on canvas: 13 by 16 1/8 in.; 33 by 41 cm.
Estimate: $20,000-30,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

This pleasant picture is ably painted and does not offend. From the lot notes:

Despois entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1807 as a pupil of both David and de Gros.  He exhibited at Paris Salon from 1812-1834, and this painting was shown at the Salon in Douai in 1825.

The Île Barbe is an island in the middle of the Saône River in the 9th arrondissement of Lyon.  It was first settled in the Neolithic era, but it was not until the Romans founded the city of Lugdunum in the first century B.C. that the island became a true settlement.  An abbey was founded on the island in the 5th century, the first monastery established in the region.

Lot 89. HUBERT ROBERT, PARIS 1733 – 1808, THE DISTRIBUTION OF MILK AT SAINT-LAZARE PRISON
oil on paper, mounted on canvas, in a painted oval: 14 1/2 by 11 7/8 in.; 36.8 by 30.2 cm.
Estimate: $80,000-120,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

This is the picture I find most appealing – the figuration is adequate, but the composition is quite wonderful.  There is a palpable tension as the milkmaid strains to pass the bucket of milk to the outstretched arm of the prisoner (not quite Sistine Chapel ceiling tension, but good enough).

From the catalogue:

On October 29, 1793, Robert was arrested and jailed by the Revolutionary authorities for having failed to renew his citizen’s card, though the true motivation for his imprisonment was surely his ties to the French aristocracy. He was held initially at the convent of Sainte-Pélagie and transferred on January 30-31, 1794 to the seminary of Saint-Lazare, both of which had been converted from former leper houses for use as prisons. Today the site of the prison is occupied by the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Robert was released in August of 1794 after the fall of Robespierre.

While imprisoned, he consoled himself by painting and drawing. Materials on which to paint were scarce and in many cases he used the earthenware prison plates on which his food was served as his “canvases.” Many of the works executed during this time are signed with the artist’s initials followed by the letters “S.L.” for Saint-Lazare. While many of the pictures Robert executed in prison are landscapes, painted from memory or purely imaginative compositions, others, such as the present example, depict scenes of life from within the prison. Here, Robert depicts the daily task of distributing milk to the prison population with striking simplicity and modernity. A female distributor leans over a large stone staircase as a tightly packed group of prisoners reach for their daily ration. A single container occupies the very center of the composition, and serves as the focal point of not only the figures’ connecting arms, but of the entire composition. The composition is devoid of any outward emotion, a fact punctuated by the cold grey stone architecture. Robert paints this prison scene with Realistic honesty that requires no added sentiment.

A slightly larger variant of square format is located in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (inv. P1580). That version features a landing and stone bannister rail at the bottom of the composition with an additional figure, a more fully articulated back wall, and a different figural arrangement along the hanging rail at right. The Musée Carnavalet canvas was commissioned by the Duc d’Audiffret-Pasquier, Robert’s prison mate, as a souvenir with which to remember the kind milk sellers who offered a small reprieve to the prisoners during their imprisonment.1

1. C. Sterling, Hubert Robert, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1933.

Lot 30. AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE RELIEF
PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 304-30 B.C.
Sculpted in sunk relief, the sky goddess Nut to the left arching over a horizontal line representing Geb, the earth god, and the god Khepri, in the form of a scarab beetle, a lion to the right with its right forepaw raised, representing Horakhty, and Isis seated to the right, looking left, all on a groundline, the upper portion of a hieroglyphic inscription below
19 in. (48.2 cm.) wide
Estimate: $20,000-30,000
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Charles Ede, London, 1979 (Small Sculpture from Ancient Egypt, vol. VII, no. 6).

Christie’s June 5, 2014 Antiquities auction in New York has a considerable number of works that lack a pre-1970 provenance – including six of the top ten lots (by estimate) and at least 80 of the 129 lots offered, or nearly two-thirds.  The “pre-1970″ refers to the date of an internationalUNESCO convention aimed at halting the looting of antiquities. As the New York Times reported, ‘In 2004 the Association of Art Museum Directors declared “member museums should not acquire” any undocumented works “that were removed after November 1970, regardless of any applicable statutes of limitation.”’ Numerous American museums – including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Boston’s Museum of Fine Art and the Getty in Los Angeles – have been forced to return looted antiquities to their host countries. I would argue that private collectors should follow these guidelines and avoid works without a pre-1970 provenance.

Erin Thompson, a professor at the City University of New York and the author of the forthcoming book “To Own the Past: How Collectors Reveal, Shape, and Destroy History,” has penned an op-ed titled “Egypt’s Looted Antiquities” for tomorrow’s International New York Times that addresses the ongoing looting problem in that country and how collectors, among others, could respond.

Lot 20. AN EGYTPIAN GRAYWACKE NAOPHOROS FOR THE PRIEST TJA-KHONSU-IMU
LATE PERIOD, 26TH-30TH DYNASTY, 664-343 B.C.
Depicted kneeling, wearing a belted kilt, his toes splayed beneath him, proffering a shrine with Hathor, the heavenly cow, depicted frontally, with long straight forelegs and defined hooves, a solar disk in between her horns, the integral base and back-pillar with a hieroglyphic inscription including part of an offering formula, a form of the “Appeal to the Living,” and a list of benefactions that the offerer, the priest Tja-Khonsu-imu, did for the temple and good deeds for the needy, the continuous inscription running along the right side, back and left side of the base, reading; “with/by means of every good, pure, sweet thing for the Ka of the Venerated One Tja-Khonsu-imu, son of Pe-di-Osiris, , for his Ka, which are given to him for breathing and being exalted and pleasant of heart, the House of Hauling, with the child…Lord of…[from ?] you, Lord of the Gods, burial a tomb on the desert of the Beautiful West (?), a tomb in the presence of…,” the back-pillar comprising two columns, reading right to left: “…excellent of character (?), of the First Servant of the Goddess (?)/First Prophet (?) Tja-Khonsu-imu, son of Pe-di-Osiris, conceived by Ta-Osiris, He says: O any God’s Servant/Prophet, any Wab-priest, any speaker who will recite this utterance (?), I shall praise the god on his account exceedingly…I turned toward the House of the Eye of Horus, a throne carved from cedar (or mountain pine), an offering table consisting of engraved bronze. I gave bread to the hungry, water the thirsty, so that he distinguished me on account of what (I) did”
13 5/8 in. (34.6 cm.) high
Estimate: $80,000-120,000
Click on Image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Jean-Philippe Mariaud de Serres, Paris.
with Mr. S, Zurich, acquired from the above in 1982.

Lot 60. A CYCLADIC MARBLE HEAD
EARLY SPEDOS VARIETY, EARLY CYCLADIC II, CIRCA 2600-2500 B.C.
From a large reclining figure, with a thick neck, the lyre-shaped head with a rounded chin and broad cheeks, the long triangular nose well centered, the convex face with a high sloping forehead tapering toward the top and terminating in a sharp-edged flat oval, the ears modelled in relief and indented at their centers, with traces of pigment “ghosts” for the eyes
5 in. (12.7 cm.) high
Estimate: $150,000-250,000.
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Uraeus, Paris, prior to 1980.

From the lot notes:

Cycladic figures with their ears carved in relief are comparatively rare. The earliest occurrence can be found on some Plastiras figures and some precanonical figures of circa 2800-2700 B.C., such as the example from the Menil Collection, Houston, no. 19 in P. Getz-Preziosi, Early Cycladic Art in North American Collections. In the following centuries ears are mainly found on large-scale figures, quite frequently with the right ear noticeably lower than the left, as on the head presented here.

Lot 64. A CYCLADIC MARBLE RECLINING FEMALE FIGURE
EARLY SPEDOS VARIETY, EARLY CYCLADIC II, CIRCA 2600-2500 B.C.
The lyre-shaped head with a slender, well-centered nose, the neck elongated, the shoulders sloping, with small breasts, the arms folded right below left, the inguinal lines of the incised pubic triangle bisected by the upper end of the deep cleft which divides the legs, denoting the genitalia, the spine delineated by a shallow groove, the feet angled down, the toes articulated
10 in. (25.4 cm.) high
Estimate: $200,000-300,000.
Provenance
with N. Koutoulakis, Paris, 1976.

From the catalogue:

The folded-arm female figure from the Bronze Age Cyclades is one of the most iconic sculptural types to have survived from antiquity. The schematic treatment of the human body, where the human form was reduced to its barest essentials, was brilliantly conceived by these unknown sculptors of the 3rd millennium B.C. Most excavated examples come from graves, but only comparatively few graves have yielded such figures, indicating the high status of their original owners. It is not known what meaning these marble figures had in antiquity or even if they ever served a function prior to their entombment.

Lot 69. A MINOAN POTTERY JAR
LATE MINOAN III, CIRCA 1400-1300 B.C.
Of globular form tapering to the outsplayed foot, with a short cylindrical neck and overhanging disk rim, with three vertical loop handles on the shoulders, the body with a series of horizontal bands, the handle zone with sections of nesting chevrons graduated in size, the handles each encircled by a ring, chevron and lines on the mouth
16¾ in. (42.5 cm.) high
Estimate: $20,000-30,000.
Provenance
Antiquities, Sotheby’s, London, 10 July 1990, lot 250.

Lot 92. A THRACIAN PARCEL GILT SILVER PHIALE MESOMPHALOS
CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA 4TH CENTURY B.C.
Conical in form on a flat ring base, the thin rim horizontal, the omphalos edged with short lanceolate petals, the sloping walls with three animal and monster combat groups in repoussé, including a lion savaging a boar, a winged griffin attacking a goat, and a lion mauling a stag, a single panther looking on, on a groundline of dotted triangles, preserving extensive gilding
6 9/16 in. (16.6 cm.) diameter
Estimate: $60,000-90,000.
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Jean-Phillipe Mariaud de Serres, Paris.
with Mr. S., Zurich, acquired from the above in 1982.

Lot 109. A ROMAN MARBLE JANIFORM HERM BUST
CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.
Archaistic in style, both depicting Hermes, one older, the other youthful, both with deeply-set heavy-lidded eyes and long hair bound in a fillet, the strands radiating from the crown and terminating in three rows of snail-curls above the forehead, with thick tendrils falling from behind the ears, along the neck and forward over the shoulders, the older with a full spade-shaped beard of wavy locks and a long downturned mustache framing full lips pressed together
13 in. (33 cm.) high
Estimate: $100,000-150,000.
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Seibu Department Store, Tokyo, 1979 (Jean-Loup Despras, Hellénisme Gréce Rome et Gandhara, no. 5).
Dr. Akira Hirabayashi, Tokyo, acquired from the above in 1979.

From the lot notes:

The older Hermes on this janiform bust is based on the now-lost statue by the Greek sculptor Alkamenes, known as the Hermes Propylaios, which was set up at the entrance to the Athenian Acropolis. It was sculpted in the archaistic style, using deliberately old-fashioned features, such as the snail-curls, in order to give the statue the sanctity associated with that of a much older work of art. The type was frequently copied in Hellenistic and Roman times. That the original can be assigned to Alkamenes is confirmed from the shaft of a copy from the 2nd century B.C., excavated at Pergamon, which carries an inscription attributing the work to him (see p. 457 in R. Grüssinger, V. Kästner and A. Scholl,Pergamon, Panorama der antiken Metropole).

Lot 109. Detail.

Lot 114. A ROMAN MARBLE PORTRAIT HEAD OF THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS
CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C.-EARLY 1ST CENTURY A.D.
Over-lifesized, depicted with finely-modelled features, his oval face with strong cheekbones, the fleshy bow-shaped mouth with the lips pressed together, dimpled at the corners, the philtrum indicated, the naso-labial folds subtly portrayed, his almond-shaped convex eyes unarticulated and slightly recessed, two small diagonal lines extending above the bridge of his nose accentuating his knitted brow, a single shallow crease across the broad forehead, the layered hair composed of a mass of short comma-shaped locks, with the three characteristic locks at the center of his forehead, two parted at the center and one to his right, a single lock curving forward before each ear
12½ in. (31.8 cm.) high
Estimate: $200,000-250,000.
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
Enrico Serranti and Giovanna LoMoro, New York and New Jersey, acquired in 1981.
with Fortuna Fine Arts, New York, 1999.
Antiquities, Christie’s, New York, 8 June 2004, lot 57.

From the catalogue:

Augustus was portrayed with youthful features throughout his reign, even toward the end of his illustrious seventy-six years. As D.E.E. Kleiner explains (p. 62 in Roman Sculpture), “In life, Augustus grew old, but in his portraits he never aged. … The portraiture of Augustus is political portraiture that is comprised of calculated imperial images rather than likenesses of the individual.”

The three comma-shaped locks parted at the center of Augustus’ forehead, such as we have here, are characteristic of the Primaporta portrait type, recognized on the famous example found at the villa of his wife Livia at Primaporta, now in the Vatican Museums. Similar, too, are the furrowed and knitted brow on the present example. The Emperor is presented as a powerful and determined military man. For a discussion on the varying portrait types of Augustus see pp. 61-69 in Kleiner, op. cit.

Lot 121. A ROMAN MARBLE SATYR TEASING A PANTHER
CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.
The youthful satyr stepping forward on the tips of his toes, his left leg advanced, depicted nude but for a nebris worn diagonally across his torso and over his left shoulder, one hoof at his shoulder, another descending on his left thigh, the goat’s head in profile on his torso, with a muscular attenuated body, his right arm originally raised, his left lowered, pulling the panther’s tail, its hind quarters raised into the air, its head turned up towards its tormentor with a snarling open mouth, a tree trunk in between them as the support, the satyr’s head turned towards the panther, with equine ears and budding horns, his wavy hair bound in a diadem, the locks deeply drilled, his brow furrowed, the unarticulated eyes with thick lids and angled brows, his full lips parted, revealing teeth, all on an integral plinth
42 9/16 in. (108 cm.) high
Estimate: $200,000-300,000.
Provenance
Private Collection, prior to 1972.
Ophiuchus Collection, New York, 1982.
with Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch, 2010 (Antiquities from the Ophiuchus Collection, no. 11).

From the catalogue:

Satyrs are frequently paired with panthers in Greek and Roman art, but only on occasion, as here, do they tease the feline. The pose of the Ophiuchus satyr is close to an example in the Villa Albani, Rome, where the satyr dangles a cluster of grapes above the frustrated panther. In both the satyr is raised up onto his toes, but the nebris of the Villa Albani satyr is worn over the right shoulder and is overflowing with grapes (see fig. 568 in M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age). For a satyr who likewise lifts the panther’s hind quarters off the ground by its tail see the example in the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels (fig. 37 in D. Brinkerhoff, A Collection of Sculpture in Classical and Early Christian Antioch). The Brussels satyr wears his nebris in similar fashion and holds a lagabolon in his raised right hand; however his feet are flat to the ground contrary to the Ophiuchus and Villa Albani examples, although this may be the result of later restoration. All are Roman in date, but must be based on a Hellenistic prototype.

Lot 129. A LATE ROMAN MARBLE MOSAIC PANEL
CIRCA 4TH-5TH CENTURY A.D.
The multicolored composition on a cream ground, preserving a dog charging to the left, wearing a pink collar, pushing off his hind legs with the forelegs extended, his ears erect and curving forward, his long thin tail projecting behind, a plant with a pink flower below, additional foliage behind, the hind paws of a second animal preserved to the left
64 in. (162.6 cm.) x 30¼ in. (76.8 cm.)
Estimate: $8,000-12,000.
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
with Galerie G. Maspero, Paris, 1989.

Lot 14. A MONUMENTAL MARBLE FIGURE OF A RAM, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA EARLY 1ST CENTURY A.D., THE RESTORATIONS PROBABLY BY FRANCESCO FRANZONI
standing with his right legs slightly advanced, with large ribbed horns spiraling around the long horizontal ears, tail falling down between the hind legs, and thick coat of wool finely carved, the support in the form of the trunk of a palm tree.
Height of figure 41 in. 104 cm.
Estimate: $2-3 million.
Click on image to enlarge.

The top ten works (by estimate) at Sotheby’s June 4, 2014 antiquities auction in New York all have one thing in common – a pre-1970 provenance.  In some cases, the provenance goes back centuries.  That should make them very desirable, especially to any museums looking to make acquisitions.  The same can’t be said of Christie’s June 5, 2014 antiquities auction in New York, where six of the top ten lots (by estimate) lack a pre-1970 provenance.  And, while some 11 of the 58 lots at Sotheby’s can’t be sourced before 1970, at Christie’s at least 80 of the 129 lots offered have no pre-1970 provenance.

Lot 34. A MARBLE PORTRAIT HEAD OF A GIRL, ROMAN IMPERIAL, AUGUSTAN, 27 B.C.-A.D. 14
the neck carved for insertion into a statue, turned to her left, her face with delicate bow-shaped lips and large wide-set eyes under slightly arched eyebrows, her finely-carved hair parted in the center, bound in an invisible fillet, brushed in wavy locks over the sides, arranged in a nodus with central braid behind, tied in a broad braided chignon in back, and falling in long locks over the sides of the neck, finely engraved curls escaping over the forehead.
Height 11 3/4 in. 29.8 cm.
Estimate: $800,000-1,200,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 44. AN EGYPTIAN LIMESTONE RELIEF PANEL, SAKKARA, 5TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF NEFERIRKARE, CIRCA 2500-2480 B.C.
probably the lintel from above a false door, finely carved in sunk and shallow relief with two depictions of the owner, Nikaure, Judge and Chief Administrator of the Palace, Judge and Inspector of the Bookkeepers, Judge Guardian of Nekhen, and Prophet of Re and Hathor in the Sun-temple of Neferirkare, seated face to face on bovine-legged chairs before a large array of offerings laid out between them, the image on the left wearing a kilt with trapezoidal overfold, ceremonial bull’s tail(?), garment tied at his shoulder with two laces, one held in his left hand, broad collar, short beard, and wig with striated terminals indicated, his right hand resting on his lap, the image on the right wearing a wrap-around kilt, sash, broad collar, short beard, and wig, his right hand resting on offerings, a papyrus-umbel scepter in his left hand, the calf muscles of the left leg clearly indicated, the face of each figure with large almond-shaped eye, contoured upper lid, and long tapering eyebrow in relief, the four registers of columns of inscription in the field enumerating and counting the offerings to Nikaure, the three columns of inscription above each figure and a long line of inscription below each register repeating Nikaure’s numerous titles, the offerings illustrated including bread, trussed quadrupeds, fowl, meat, and vegetables, contained in and resting on a variety of containers and supports.
26 by 75 1/4 in. 66 by 191.13 cm.
Estimate: $700,000-1,000,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 9. A MARBLE FIGURE OF APOLLO, ROMAN IMPERIAL, PROBABLY HADRIANIC, CIRCA 130 A.D.
after a Greek original of circa 460 B.C., the god standing in a majestic attitude with his weight on the left leg, his right leg advanced and left arm raised, a strand of hair falling onto his right shoulder, his cloak draped over the support with long deeply carved folds, remains of his boot on the back of the left ankle.
Height 59 in. 150 cm.
Estimate: $200,000-300,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 11. A MARBLE FIGURE OF A SATYR CARRYING A WINE SKIN, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA 2ND THIRD OF THE 2ND CENTURY A.D.
after a Hellenistic prototype of the 1st Century B.C., stepping forward in a lively attitude, turning to his left, and holding a large wineskin across his back, his thick wavy hair bound in a fillet, his goat-skin cloak, lagobolon, and pan flute resting on the support at his feet; the right arm and top of the wineskin restored in marble.
Height as restored 42 1/2 in. 108 cm.
Estimate: $100,000-150,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 13. A MARBLE FOUNTAIN FIGURE OF PAN, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D., WITH 18TH CENTURY OR EARLIER RESTORATIONS
based on a Hellenistic work of the 2nd Century B.C., standing against a rocky outcrop with the weight on his right leg, his head looking down and turned to his right, and holding an amphora balanced on his left shoulder over a goatskin, his grinning face with divided beard, full parted lips, and gnarled brow, the vessel pierced for use as a waterspout.
Height as restored 31 3/4 in. 80.6 cm.
Estimate: $100,000-150,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 5. A MARBLE TORSO OF APHRODITE, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D.
inspired by the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, circa 350 B.C., the goddess standing with her weight on the right leg and bending forward slightly at the waist, her right forearm resting on her hip, the iron dowel on the left leg for attachment to a missing support.
13 1/4 in. 33.7 cm.
Estimate: $80,000-120,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 12. A MARBLE FIGURE OF A SATYR PLAYING THE PIPE, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY A.D., WITH 18TH CENTURY RESTORATIONS
the ancient torso after Skopas’s statue of Pothos of the later 4th Century B.C.; the base, support, feet, arms, left shoulder, and neck restored, the head ancient but not belonging.
Height 44 1/8 in. 112.1 cm.
Estimate: $60,000-90,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 35. A MARBLE FUNERARY PORTRAIT BUST OF A DEIFIED YOUTH OR PRINCE, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY A.D.
the bust carried aloft by an eagle with wings outstretched, a chlamys fastened on and falling from the left shoulder, his head turned to his left, his short hair arranged in wavy curls in front with a slight part over the forehead, and spiral curls in back; the head and top of the wings of the eagle restored; mounted on an 18th-century marble socle and plinth.
Height 12 in. 30.5 cm.; with socle and plinth 15 in. 38.1 cm.
Estiate: $60,000-90,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 39. A MARBLE STRIGILLATED SARCOPHAGUS WITH EROS AND PSYCHE, ROMAN IMPERIAL, SECOND QUARTER OF THE 3RD CENTURY A.D.
of rectangular form, carved in front at each end with an erote holding a torch, the central panel decorated within an architectural frame with Eros and Psyche embracing, each of the short sides carved with crossed shields.
19 1/2 by 79 3/8 by 23 1/8 in. 49.5 by 201.6 by 58.7 cm.
Estimate: $60,000-90,000.
Click on image to enlarge.

Wooded Landscape with Merrymakers in a Cart, Meindert Hobbema, c. 1665.
Click on image to enlarge.

According to a press announcement from the Rijksmuseum:

The Rijksmuseum is privileged to have acquired the biggest donation of the past fifty years: ‘Wooded Landscape with Merrymakers in a Cart’ (approx. 1665) by the Dutch 17th-century painter Meindert Hobbema. This exceptionally well-preserved landscape is one of the best paintings by Meindert Hobbema, one of the most famous Golden Age landscape painters. The donation is part of Willem baron Van Dedem’s collection, who lives in England. The masterpiece is a key part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection and is on display from today in the Gallery of Honour.

Wim Pijbes, General Director of the Rijksmuseum: ‘A long tradition of important Rijksmuseum donations is honoured at the highest level. To date, there has been no other masterpiece by Hobbema in the Rijksmuseum. It’s a dream come true for every director.’

Wooded Landscape with Merrymakers in a Cart

A cheerful company with horse and carriage passes by several farmhouses in a wooded landscape. Figures along the sandy track are responding to their exuberant waving. Meindert Hobbema, who was at the peak of his career at this time, was student of Jacob van Ruisdael. Even though Hobbema’s landscapes are very similar to those by his tutor, they are lighter and more cheerful. Tree tops reach out high in the sky and leaves are glistening in the sunlight. What’s striking is that Hobbema illuminated his trees from behind, giving the display extra depth.

The donation

Donations from private individuals are invaluable for the Rijksmuseum’s collection. As such, this donation continues the tradition of donations by Henri Deterding (1921), François Gérard Waller (1930) and Mr and Mrs De Bruijn-Van der Leeuw (1962). Willem baron Van Dedem has been collecting 17th-century Dutch paintings for over 50 years; his collection is regarded as one of the most important collections in the field. Van Dedem is an honorary member of the Rembrandt Association, was previously a member of the board of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and is also chair of TEFAF Maastricht.

Johan Christian Dahl, Frederiksborg Castle, 1817, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund.
Click on image to enlarge.

The Dallas Museum of Art has made a terrific new acquisition, an early and alluring painting by Johan Christian Dahl of Frederiksborg Castle.  Here’s their announcement:

The Dallas Museum of Art acquired in May Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight, 1817, by the Norwegian artist, active in Denmark and Germany, Johan Christian Dahl (1788 – 1857). The recent acquisition is one of the most important works from the Copenhagen phase of Johan Christian Dahl’s career. Long missing, the work was rediscovered in 2000 after a cleaning revealed a signature and date of 1817, the year before Dahl left Copenhagen for Dresden. Dahl is best known today as a Romantic painter of Nordic landscapes, often seen in dramatic lighting or weather conditions. He is also considered one of the great masters of Danish Golden Age painting. Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight, on view for the first time publicly since 1817, is currently accessible through the Museum’s conservation gallery.

The first record of Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight appears in a letter from Dahl to fellow artist Christian Albrecht Jensen on October 30, 1817, in which he mentions several works he had completed that summer, including three paintings of Frederiksborg Castle. The largest of those three paintings, which is now in the DMA collection, was commissioned by Etatsraad Bugge. The other two works were created for King Frederik VI in 1817 and are now in the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark) in Copenhagen. One of the paintings for King Frederik shows the castle from the same vantage point in the palace gardens as the DMA painting, but in the daylight. The other shows the castle by moonlight but from a more distant point in the gardens.

Fredericksborg Castle.
Click on image to enlarge.

Frederiksborg Castle is one of the largest castles in Scandinavia. It was built by King Christian IV (1577-1648) in the first two decades of the seventeenth century on the site of an older royal residence and hunting lodge that had been built by King Frederick II (1534-1588), for whom the new palace was named. By the eighteenth century, Frederiksborg Castle was rarely occupied by the royal family, and it was only in the nineteenth century that it became a romanticized symbol of Denmark-Norway’s glorious past. The Romantic character of the castle, particularly in evening light, is evident in Dahl’s 1817 series of paintings. His interest in exploring the visual and psychological effects of moonlight was shared by a number of his contemporaries, particularly Caspar David Friedrich, who had studied in Copenhagen between 1794 and 1798 and who became Dahl’s closest associate in Dresden. Dahl’s paintings of Frederiksborg Castle became powerful icons of Romantic Danish nationalism, and were an important source for younger artists including Christian Købke and P.C. Skovgaard.

The addition of Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight enhances the DMA’s collection of art from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by artists outside of France, while expanding the Museum’s collection of European art from the first half of the nineteenth century. It is a major example of European Romanticism and complements the proto-Romantic landscape paintings in the DMA collection including Claude-Joseph Vernet’s Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm of 1775 and J.M.W. Turner’s Bonneville, Savoy of 1803. Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight by Johan Christian Dahl was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art through the Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund.  “The rediscovery of Frederiksborg Castle by Moonlight in 2000 was a major event in the world of Danish Golden Age painting,” said Heather MacDonald, the DMA’s Lillian and James H. Clark Associate Curator of European Art. “It is a painting worthy of inclusion in any major museum and we are pleased to now have it as a highlight of the DMA collection,” added Olivier Meslay, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs.

Director of the Tate Sir Nicholas Serota in front of ‘Untitled (Bacchus) 2006-2008, Acrylic on canvas’ by Cy Twombly Photo: Justin Tallis/PA

The Tate Modern in London today announced a major gift from the estate of Cy Twombly – three paintings created between 2006-2008 from the remarkable Bacchus series and five bronze sculptures.  The Telegraph claims the donation is worth 50 million.

According to the museum’s press release, Tate director Sir Nicholas said: “This is one of the most generous gifts ever to Tate by an artist or a foundation. It ranks alongside Rothko’s gift of the Seagram mural paintings in 1969 and together with Twombly’s cycle of paintings The Four Seasons 1993-5, acquired in 2002, this gives an enduring place inLondon to the work of one of the great painters of the second half of the twentieth century. I would also like to thank Nicola Del Roscio, President and Julie Sylvester, Vice-President of the Cy Twombly Foundation in realising Cy’s wishes.”

Installation view of Cy Twombly at Tate Modern

The Bacchus series paintings, featuring great blood red loops on tan backgrounds, began in 2005 and the first eight paintings were first shown later that year at the Gagosian Gallery on New York’s Madison Avenue (and there is an excellent catalogue). It remains one of the most remarkable and memorable exhibitions I have ever seen.

The New York Times reviewer Roberta Smith called the exhibition a “visual tsunami.” She added, “Waves of pure, red-hot red, almost visible before you see the canvasses, engulf the eye from all sides.” Smith concluded: “These amazing, angry, joyful, enveloping surfaces are in the tradition of the aging artist letting it rip.”  Yves-Alain Bois, writing in Artforum, observed: “We immediately intuit that the huge span of the loops involved the whole body, an athleticism unprecedented in Twombly’s entire career and, for that matter, rarely seen in the history of twentieth-century art.”

Installation view of Cy Twombly at Tate Modern

According to the Tate announcement:

The Roman god Bacchus is a recurring theme in Twombly’s work. In summer 2005, he returned to the Iliad for inspiration to create a cycle of eight paintings in vermilion colour on the theme of the ecstasy and insanity of the Roman god. Red is the colour of wine and also of blood and the three canvases encompass both the sensual pleasure and violent debauchery associated with the god. The unfurling scrolls of the paintings were made, like Matisse’s large drawings for the chapel at Vence, with a brush affixed to the end of a pole, which accounts for their vitality and scale. The three late paintings extend Twombly’s series of Bacchus paintings from 2005 and were begun on canvases dating from that first campaign of painting.

The five sculptures are all bronze casts of Twombly’s assemblages of found objects and detritus, such as the top of an olive barrel, which forms one of the works, Rotalla. Through simple elements Twombly evokes classical artefacts, such as chariots and ships, while their casting in bronze lends otherwise ephemeral objects the permanence of ancient sculpture.

Lot 100. John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) Girl Fishing, signed ‘John S. Sargent’ (upper left)–dated ’1913′ (upper right)
oil on canvas: 19½ x 28¼ in. (49.6 x 71.8 cm.)
Estimate: $3-5 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of $3.7 million ($4,309,000 with the buyer’s premium).
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
The artist.
M. Knoedler & Co., London, acquired from the above, 1913.
Charles S. Carstairs, 1914.
Daniel Farr, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Stephen C. Clark, New York.
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, acquired from the above, 1929.
Anna Eugenia La Chapelle, New York, 1929.
By descent to the late owner.

Mrs. Huguette Clark Gower, daughter of the late Senator William A. Clark of Montana, copper magnate, who was granted a divorce from William MacDonald Gower in Reno, Nevada Aug. 11, 1930, on grounds of desertion. The couple were married in Santa Barbara, California in 1928, and separated more than a year ago. There are no children, and the decree was awarded with neither property alimony settlement. (AP Photo)
Click on image to enlarge.

Two American Impressionist paintings from the estate of Huguette Clark, which have not been on the market for at least 85 years, were sold today at Christie’s in New York as part of the auction An American Dynasty: The Clark Family Treasures. They are among some $300 million worth furniture, silver, a Stradivari violin known as “The Kreutzer” (estimate: $7.5-10 million) and other artifacts once owned by an heiress the Washington Post called “pathologically private.” She died in 2011 at the age of 104 and her estate was settled last year – the 357-lot auction is expected to last all day.

According to the Post:

[Her] billionaire father — the copper magnate and Montana Sen. William A. Clark — founded Las Vegas, built his family a 121-room mansion on [New York's] Fifth Avenue and was believed to be the second-richest man in the country in 1907, behind only John D. Rockefeller, the year after Huguette was born.

Her story is a sort of forensic examination of what one woman who could have done anything at all did do. She lived increasingly carefully. Although physically healthy, she spent the last 20 years of her highly circumscribed life in a New York hospital room in which she constructed even smaller worlds, designing and commissioning miniature Japanese castles. And where, in all that time, she was never given a psychiatric evaluation.

Meryl Gordon’s new biography of the recluse, “The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark,” describes in detail how her lifelong fear of being taken advantage of by her relatives freed her to be taken advantage of by various caretakers, including at least two of her doctors at Beth Israel.

A John Singer Sargent Girl Fishing, (above) a late work among his Italian paintings and last on the market in 1929, sold for a hammer price of $3.7 million ($4,309,000 with the buyer’s premium).

Lot 101. William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) A Water Fountain in Prospect Park, signed ‘Wm.M. Chase.’ (lower left)
oil on panel: 6¼ x 9½ in. (15.9 x 24.1 cm.)
Painted circa 1886.
Estimate: $500,000-700,000. This lot sold for a hammer price of $380,000 ($461,000 with the buyer’s premium).
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
The artist.
Senator William Andrews Clark, (possibly) gift from the above.
By descent to the late owner.

The following lot, a vignette in Prospect Park, the masterwork of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and Calvert Vaux, sold for a hammer price of $380,000 ($461,000 with the buyer’s premium), well below its $500,000 low estimate.  It depicts a scene near a water feature (seen below from a different angle) and is believed to have been a gift from the artist.

Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 26. Detail

Suffering from ODD (Ormulu Deficit Disorder)?

Aching for antiquities?

Pining for pieta dura?

Salivating for silver?

Frenzied for fauteuils?

Bursting for bronze?

The aptly named July 10, 2014 Exceptional Sale at Christie’s in London will slake your thirst … and drain your wallet … but, oh will you be stocked with some treasures.This posting will focus on the two highest estimated lots among the 58 on offer – first is Lot 10, the outstanding Northampton Sekhemka, a 4,500-year-old Egyptian statue, followed by Lot 30, a bronze group representing the Rape of a Sabine Woman by Giambologna.

The Sekhemka was acquired by Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton (1790-1851), in Egypt between December 1849 and April 1850 and has been in the family ever since.  There are extensive catalogue notes (excerpted below) and a video. According to the Northampton Chronicle & Echo sale of the “highly-valued Egyptian limestone figure, once a centrepiece display in the town’s museum … will help pay for a ‘state-of-the-art’ redevelopment and expansion of the Guildhall Road museum.”  The work should generate interest from serious antiquities collectors, both private and institutional. However, this deaccession has been met with protest, too.  The Northampton Chronicle & Echo reports the move “has been publicly denounced by both the Arts Council of England and the Museums Association, which both said the move could risk the museum losing its accredited status and, in turn, its ability to apply for major grant funding from various bodies.”

The article also notes:

The Save Sekhemka Group is calling on Northampton people to help its fight to block the July 10 Christies sale.

They need to raise £2,000 in order to pay for a barrister, that they say would look into the legality of the bid to sell it and would convince both the council and the Marquis of Northampton to be ‘more transparent’ in their currently ‘confidential’ dealings.

They believe that the Sekhemka was gifted to the people of Northampton as part of a ‘Deed of Gift’ signed by the 4th Marquis of Northampton in 1880, as part of a ‘geological collection’ of Egyption items.

However legal representatives of the current Marquis said the Sekhemka was not covered as part of the ‘gifted’ collection, though they say he is entitled to a portion of its sale.

Lot 10. AN EXCEPTIONAL EGYPTIAN PAINTED LIMESTONE STATUE FOR THE INSPECTOR OF THE SCRIBES SEKHEMKA
OLD KINGDOM, DYNASTY 5, CIRCA 2400-2300 B.C.
Depicted seated, wearing a tight-fitting wig with rows of carefully-cut curls, his expressive face intact and beautifully carved with subtly moulded brows, his eyes looking slightly downward, with a short nose and a softly modelled mouth, the slightly smiling lips outlined by a raised vermillion line, wearing a short pleated kilt with a knotted belt and a pleated tab angled above, holding a partially unrolled papyrus scroll on his lap with a hieroglyphic inscription listing twenty-two varied offerings, his powerful bare chest with clearly indicated collar bones, muscular arms and strong legs, his hands finely detailed, a hieroglyphic inscription on the seat reading: “Inspector of the scribes of the house of the master of largess, one revered before the great god, Sekhemka”; to his right, his wife in much smaller scale kneeling, her left leg bent elegantly beneath her right, her left arm tenderly embracing Sekhemka’s right leg, wearing a tight-fitting ankle-length dress, the accompanying inscription reading: “The one concerned with the affairs of the king, one revered before the great god, Sitmeret”; to his left a young man sculpted in raised relief, most probably his son, with an inscription reading: “Scribe of the master of largess, Seshemnefer”; the three sides of the cubic seat sculpted in shallow raised relief with a ceremonial procession of male offering bearers bringing a duck, geese, a calf, lotus flowers, unguent and incense
29 ½ in. (75 cm.) high; 12 ¼ in. (31.2 cm.) wide; 17 3/8 in. (44.1 cm.) deep
Estimate: £4-6 million ($6,784,000-10,176,000).
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
Probably from the Royal Cemeteries, Saqqara.
Acquired by Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton (1790-1851), in Egypt between December 1849 and April 1850.
Presented to the Northampton Museums and Art Gallery by either Charles Douglas-Compton, 3rd Marquess of Northampton (1816-1877) or Admiral William Compton, 4th Marquess of Northampton (1818-1897).
Exhibited
The Northampton Museum, Northampton, general exhibition, 1866–1899.
The Abington Museum, Northampton, Egyptian room, 1899–1950s.
General exhibition, Northampton Central Museum, Northampton, from 1960.
The Abington Museum, Northampton, Ancient Egypt – Land of Mystery, 1977.
Northampton Central Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton, Mummies and Megaliths – the Bronze Age in Britain and Egypt, 1983.
Northampton Central Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton, Ancient Egypt: The Northampton Collection, 1988.
General exhibition, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Northampton, 2001-2012.

SCULPTURE IN THE OLD KINGDOM 2500 B.C. – ETERNITY

Life after death was the primary belief in ancient Egypt and preparing for one’s welfare after death was the project of a lifetime. A tomb needed to be built, funerary equipment had to be arranged, and the mortuary cult needed to be performed. Aside from the royal family, only the elite had the resources to fully realise these demands. The tomb was made in two parts, comprising a substructure where the sarcophagus was placed, and a superstructure with decorated rooms and chapels. It was a favour of the king to be permitted to have a sumptuously decorated tomb, given only to esteemed members of the administration. Artisans from the royal workshop would create the colourfully decorated walls and lifelike statues representing the deceased and his family.

Group sculptures representing the royal family are known since the early Dynastic period, circa 3000-2650 B.C. A relief fragment from Heliopolis shows an early depiction of king Djoser with his family gathered around his legs. The intimate attitude of the wife kneeling on the ground, her legs tucked to one side, her arm around her husband’s legs was reserved only for royal women in the 4th dynasty (circa 2600-2450 B.C.). Only in the 5th dynasty did non-ruling members of the royal family adopt this style, as with the example of the statue of princess Nebibnebty and her husband Seankhuptah, dating to circa 2450-2300 B.C. This type was subsequently gradually adopted by high officials and entered private statuary shortly after.

Only one other statue is attributed to Sekhemka, Inspector of the Scribes, and is in the Brooklyn Museum. The kneeling figure is made of diorite, the base is in limestone, painted to imitate diorite and is decorated as an offering table. It is suggested that Sekhemka may have had a discarded royal sculpture repaired and a base added to it. The similar quality of the carving between this and the present lot certainly serves to link the two pieces. Moreover, both statues were brought out of Egypt at around the same time; Dr. Henry Abbott, the original owner of the Brooklyn Sekhemka, returned with his collection in 1851.

Lot 10. Click on image to enlarge.

SESHEMNEFER

On the front of the cubic seat, to the right of Sekhemka, is a figure of a young man, Seshemnefer, walking to the left. He is depicted nude, a sign of youth, and holds a large lotus flower with long stem in his left hand, the symbol of rebirth. As well as providing his name, the hieroglyphic inscription above his head identifies him as a scribe of the master of largess, which suggests that he worked in the same office as his father. That such a young man already has a work title may appear incongruous, however this is a depiction of Sekhemka’s son as an idealized youth. His presence reinforces the carefully constructed image of an idyllic, young and fecund family.

Lot 10. Click on image to enlarge.

Lot 10. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

SITMERIT AND INTIMACY IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Sekhemka’s wife, Sitmerit, meaning literally “The Daughter of Merit”, is shown kneeling to his right. Though diminutive in scale, her refined features are stately and beautiful. Her imposing wide wig frames her round face, whilst rows of straight and curling natural hair appear on her forehead. Her eyes gaze upwards, in the same direction as Sekhemka’s. She is wearing a tight-fitted white linen dress, revealing the shape of her body. The dress was patterned in blue and orange around her breasts, as the remains of pigment behind her shoulders reveal. Her wrists and ankles are adorned with bracelets and traces of a broad collar are visible on her neck. She is delicately embracing her husband’s right leg, with her left hand carved on the inside of his calf.

Canons in Egyptian art were established by the royal family and followed by the elite, who were always trying to emulate their sovereign. Although appearing quite static at first glance, representations of royal and private couples always have an element of intimacy, showing conjugal affection. In the 4th dynasty, the wife is only touching her husband with one hand, but by the 5th dynasty, she will be gently brushing his calf with her fingertips. Later examples show husband and wife holding hands, arm in arm, or even embracing by the shoulders.

Here, the position of Sitmerit’s body, as well as her composed expression is perhaps what gives peacefulness and harmony to this family portrait. It shows the close link between husband and wife, and their attachment to their family. The smaller scale is not a symbol of women’s place in society; rather, it is an artistic choice, for women had an equal status with men. She provides the love and support that her family needs. She prompts desire, gives life, and watches over her loved ones. She has a protective role and is the grounding force for the family.

Lot 10. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

THE SCROLL

Sekhemka holds a papyrus scroll open on his lap. The hieroglyphic inscription lists offerings, with much detail about type and quantity, including food, beverages, unguents and liquids, incense and cosmetics, funerary equipment and royal gifts. These are the essential offerings that Sekhemka will need to subsist comfortably in in the afterlife.

Register I
Water-pouring
Incense
Festival perfume, one jar
Hekenu-oil, one jar
Sefet-oil, one jar
Nehenem-oil, one jar
Tuaut-oil, one jar
First quality cedar oil, one jar
First quality Libyan oil, one jar
Green eye-paint, one bag
Black eye-paint, one bag

Register II
Cloth strips, a pair
Incense
Cool water; two pellets (of natron)
An offering-table
Royal offering, two cakes (?)
Royal offering of the hall, two cakes (?)
Sitting
Breakfast, bread and beer
One Tetu-loaf
One Te-reteh-loaf
One Nemeset-jar of beer

Lot 10. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

And now, the Giambologna.

Lot 30. A BRONZE GROUP OF THE RAPE OF A SABINE
BY GIAMBOLOGNA (c.1529-1608), FLORENCE, CIRCA 1583-98
inscribed ‘GIO BOLONGE’ on the rockwork base; the standing Roman male figure holding the Sabine woman aloft, the Sabine man crouching below
23 ¼ in. (59 cm.) high
Estimate: £3-5 million ($5,088,000-8,480,000).
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
Almost certainly purchased in the years 1919-1928 by a private European collector, probably in Germany.
Sold by the above ‘A Continental Lady of Title’, Christie’s, London, 5 December 1989, lot 100 (£2,750,000).
Acquired by the present owner in the above sale.

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna, in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. Click on image to enlarge.

The statue, as the lots notes and a  video discuss, is based on Giambologna’s marble version in Florence. According to the catalogue:

Nothing is known about the commission of the marble but according to a letter of 27 October 1580 by Simone Fortuna to the Duke of Urbino … Giambologna was then at work on a marble group of three statues (‘un gruppo di tre statue’) soon to be finished and destined for the Loggia dei Pisani, a loggia that once stood opposite the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria. Because it is Giambologna’s only marble composed of three figures, and because of its destination for a loggia in the same piazza where it was finally placed, this must have been the Rape of a Sabine Woman … The marble was finished, apart from the ‘ultima mano’, by 30 July 1582, when Donatallo’s Judith was removed from where it had stood under the right-hand side arch of the Loggia dei Lanzi and replaced, on 28 August, by the ‘miracoloso gruppo’ of Giambologna’s Rape of a Sabine … It was, however, covered for Giambologna to add the finishing touches ‘a suo piacere senza essere veduto da nessuno’ (‘at his leisure, without being seen by anyone’), as the diarist Settimani reports for that date. Its unveiling took place on 14 January 1583 and caused a stir of emotion and excitement.

About this bronze, the catalogue says:

The Rape of a Sabine Woman offered here belongs to a small group of bronzes modelled, cast, and finished in a similar way: those in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich (inv. 52/118, published in Weihrauch 1956, pp. 84-87, cat. 110); with Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill, New York (Kryza-Gersch, in Wengraf 2014, pp. 148-155, cat. 9); in the Liechtenstein Princely collections, Vaduz-Vienna (inv. SK 115, Draper, in: Frankfurt 1986, p. 177, cat. 16); and in a private collection. Among these, it is the only one bearing an inscription with Giambologna’s name. Because its technical features and artistic quality are consistent with bronzes known or likely to have been produced under Giambologna’s supervision, this inscription amounts to a signature.

Lot 30. Detail. Click on page to enlarge.

Bronze groups representing the Rape of a Sabine Woman with three figures are not documented in Giambologna’s lifetime. However, a cast described in the inventory of the Kunstkammer of Emperor Rudolph II (1552-1612, r. 1576) as ‘a group after the one Giovan Bologna made in Florence of white marble, being three figures of bronze, is a Rape of a Sabine’ (‘Ein gruppo nach dem Giovan Bolonia so er zu Florentz von weissem marmo gemacht, sein 3 figurn von bronzo, ist ein rabimento Sabine’; Bauer/Haupt 1976, p. 101, no. 1907) must have been an autograph work. Rudolph probably knew Giambologna personally. He knighted him on 26 August 1588 (Desjardins 1883, App. E 172-174), and according to the above-mentioned inventory, which was drawn up between 1607 and 1611, he had what must have been the largest collection of Giambologna bronzes that anyone had assembled while the sculptor was still alive.

[…]

The facture of the cast suggests a date after 1584, at which point Giambologna is known to have produced at least one bronze by the indirect casting process: it is, in fact, consistent with that of the Giambologna bronzes so far analysed, the oldest of which is the Bargello Crouching Venus of 1584 (inv. 62B; Sturman 2001, p. 126).

Inspection of the underside and X-rays both show that the group has been expertly cast: its walls are evenly thin, and since great care has been taken to empty it of its casting core, it is light and easy to handle. There are only five noticeable holes: between the Roman’s right leg and the torso of the Crouching Sabine Man, under the right knee of the Roman, at the right temple and the right foot of the Old Man and to the right side of the neck of the Sabine Woman. No other flaws or repairs are visible either to the naked eye or in the X-ray. X-rays also reveal wax to wax joins in the arms of the Sabine Woman and the Old Man. This is consistent with documented Giambologna bronzes.

Lot 30. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

THE DATE AND THE MAKER OF THE CAST

Although there can be no doubt that the bronze was made under Giambologna’s supervision, it is more difficult to suggest a date. The detail of the eyes with iris and pupil points to a date after 1587, after, that is, the bronzes given to the Elector of Saxony.

Until recently it was widely thought that only Antonio Susini was responsible for casts in Giambologna’s workshop. But, as suggested by the author in 2013, there is no evidence for this in contemporary documents (Zikos 2013). Susini was an expert assistant to Giambologna for preparing large- or small-scale casts from around 1580 to 1605, in which year the old master suggested that the best works that could be had from his hand were bronzes after his own models made by Susini. But Susini is first documented as having produced such works only in 1598, 1599, and 1601, when he gave Giambologna models to cast in the foundry of fra Domenico Portigiani. Only after Giambologna’s death did he open a foundry of his own where he continued to produce his late teacher’s models.

Another expert chiseller in Giambologna’s service was Felice Trabellesi, described in 1588 as the best man in Florence for casting and chiselling bronzes after Giambologna models (Zikos 2013, p. 198). Although Filippo Baldinucci, Susini’s biographer, claims that Trabellesi was Susini’s teacher, it is more likely that they were the same age, as both entered the Florentine Accademia del Disegno in 1589.

It is impossible to say unequivocally that the present bronze was finished by Trabellesi. But, compared to the other four, it is the only one that shows a strength in modelling that distinguishes it both from the cast in Munich (which is the most subtle and must therefore be the latest of all) and from those in the private, the Hill, and the Liechtenstein collections. These latter four are all consistent in the definition of the surface. If we need a name for the Giambologna assistant who helped to produce this bronze, then Traballesi is therefore the most likely candidate. The fine differences between our bronze and the others of the group are evinced by a precise comparison between them, which has also proved that they all depend from the same model, since they all have the same internal measurements.

Lot 17. Detail. Click on image to enlarge.

A tall (80″) Aphrodite owned by the Duke of Northumberland and located since 1773 at Syon House in England is the featured lot in Sotheby’s July 9, 2014 “Treasures” sale in London.  The work is a first century AD Roman copy of a lost fifth century DC Greek original, and is similar in style to one in Munich’s Glyptothek – this typology is called the “Syon-Munich type.” One of the statue’s notable feature is its head, which has been determined to be original, following the discovery of a comparable statue in 2005.  It’s too often the case that statuary found several hundred years ago was “restored” using disparate body parts not original to a work – the arms on this statue are an 18th century addition.

According to the sale notes:

The statue is first recorded with certainty in the late 16th Century, as it stood in the garden of the (no longer extant) Palazzo Cesi in Rome, on the northern slope of the Janiculum near the Basilica of Saint Peter. An engraving published by Cavalleriis in 1585 identifies it as “Agrippina, Marci Agrippae filia, ibidem” (“Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Agrippa, in the same place” [i.e., as the statues illustrated previously, “in the Cesi garden”) and demonstrates a clear attempt at rendering the highly specific coiffure of the Syon statue.

Lot 17. A MARBLE STATUE OF APHRODITE, ROMAN IMPERIAL, CIRCA EARLY 1ST CENTURY A.D.
after a Greek original of circa 430-420 B.C., the goddess standing in a majestic and graceful attitude, and wearing high-soled sandals, long diaphanous chiton leaving her right shoulder bare, and long cloak falling from her left shoulder in deeply pleated folds, her oval face with parted lips and large wide-set eyes, the wavy hair parted in the center, bound in a broad braided diadem, and flowing in a long tapering tress down the nape of neck; restored in marble: part of proper right earlobe, tip of nose, both forearms with attributes, small parts of drapery, and other minor areas
203.2cm., 80in. high
Estimate: £4-6 million ($6,771,600 – 10,157,400)
Click on image to enlarge.
Provenance
Cardinals Paolo Emilio Cesi (1481-1537) and Federico Cesi (1500-1565), garden of the Palazzo Cesi on the Janiculum, Rome, acquired prior to 1550;
Robert and James Adam (1728-1792 and 1732-1794), Rome and London (Christie’s, London, March 1st, 1773, lot 51 (Antique Statues in Marble, p. 15);
Sir Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1714–1786), Syon House, Middlesex, acquired from the above;
by descent to the present owner until the present day, Syon House, Middlesex

The catalogue adds:

The Cesi collection was assembled by two brothers, Cardinals Paolo Emilo Cesi (1481-1537) and Federico Cesi (1500-1565). Born into the provincial Umbrian elite, they were eager to compete with the Roman nobility for status and evidence of learning and taste. Their open-air museum became a major center of attraction for art lovers in general and Dutch artists in particular, such as Martin van Heemsckerck, who drew several views of the garden, including many of its antiquities, and Henrick van Cleef III, who painted a detailed panoramic view of the Palazzo Cesi and its garden (see M. van der Meulen, “Cardinal Cesi’s Antique Sculpture Garden: Notes on a Painting by Henrick van Cleef III,” Burlington Magazine, vol. 116, January 1974, fig. 27, and J.D. Hunt, Garden and Grove:The Italian Renaissance Garden, London, 1986, fig. 15).

Where in Rome the statue was found and when the Cesi acquired remain unknown. Textual evidence appears to point to a date of acquisition no more precise than sometime in the first half of the 16th century.

[…]

Lot 17. Two additional views. Click on image to enlarge.

After almost 200 years, during which the Syon Aphrodite must have either remained in the Cesi Collection or sojourned in one or more of the great antiquities collections of late Renaissance and Baroque Rome, the statue resurfaced in 1773. It can be tentatively identified with a statue offered in the sale of the collection/inventory of British architects and dealers Robert and James Adam. The Christie’s auction of 25-27 February and 1-2 March 1773 was organized to help fund the brothers’ project to build the Adelphi Buildings, a row of terrace houses in neoclassical style in central London.

[…]

A month or two after Christie’s Adam Brothers sale, in the Spring of 1773, four statues, two male and two female, including Aphrodite (a.k.a. Livia) and Scipio, were set on tall pedestals in the Robert Adam-designed Great Hall at Syon House, the Duke of Northumberland’s house in Middlesex.

Lot. 2 MASTER OF THE AENEID (ACTIVE CIRCA 1530-1535)
FRENCH, LIMOGES, CIRCA 1530
SIX PANELS REPRESENTING SCENES FROM BOOK VIII OF THE AENEID
painted enamel on copper with gilt highlights, within a later glazed partially gilt wood frame
panels: 21 by 19.5cm., 8¼ by 7¾in. each
frame: 65.5 by 82cm., 25¾ by 32¼in.
Estimate: £800,000-1,200,000 ($1,354,320-2,031,480).
Click on image to enlarge.

Also being deaccessioned from the Duke of Northumberland’s collection, this one at Alnwick Castle, is this splendid group of 16th century Limoges enamel on copper panels depicting scenes from Virgil’s Aeneid.  The catalogues notes are fascinating:

Few cycles of Limoges enamels have been as often cited as the extraordinary series of plaques representing Virgil’sAeneid of which the present six are amongst the largest groups remaining in private hands. Made circa 1530, it is the earliest instance in which the technique of painting enamel on copper was used to depict secular scenes. According to the latest count by Baratte [“La Série de Plaques du Maître de L’Énéide”, A. Erlande-Brandenburg, J-M. Leniaud and X. Dectot (eds.), Études d'histoire de l'art offertes à Jacques Thirion. Des premiers temps chrétiens au XXe siècle, Paris, 2001, pp. 146-147, nos. 68, 70-72, 74 and 75] … eighty-two plaques from the series survive, making it easily the most numerous suite of Limoges enamels and the only example where a complete set of book illustrations was appropriated. In addition to the six from the collections of the Dukes of Northumberland, the most significant concentrations of enamels from the series in public collections are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (15), the Musée du Louvre (11), and the Walters Art Gallery (7). Many of these passed through the hands of the foremost private collectors of the past 150 years, including Hollingworth Magniac, Frederic Spitzer, Henry Walters, and the Kofler-Trunigers. Their pre-19th-century history and context, however, have been the subject of much speculation.

Here are each of the six panels, with additional notes afterward:

A: The signal for war given by Turnus from the citadel of Laurentum.
Click on image to enlarge.

B: The sacrificial feast of Evander before the walls of Pallantium interrupted by the arrival of Aeneas and his fleet; Pallas, son of Evander, challenging Aeneas, who answers from his vessel.
Click on image to enlarge.

C: Pallas conducts Aeneas from the ship to his father.
Click on image to enlarge.

D: Evander relating to Aeneas how fauns and wild men once dwelt in the land.
Click on image to enlarge.

E: Venus making a sign with thunder and the flashing of arms and armour in the heavens to Evander and Pallas with Aeneas and Achates.
Click on image to enlarge.

F: Evander bidding farewell to Pallas who rides forth with Aeneas and Achates to meet Tarcho and the Etruscans appearing from a grove in the background.
Click on image to enlarge.

Again, from the catalogue:

Johann Grüninger after a design by Sebastian Brandt, Pallas conducts Aeneas from the ship to his father, woodcut, circa 1502.

Each of the Aeneid enamels is based on illustrations designed by Sebastian Brandt for an influential compilation of Virgil’s texts with commentaries published by Johann Grüninger in Strasbourg in 1502 [left]. While these woodcuts are distinctly Gothic, the enamels were painted in the courtly Renaissance style current in France at the time. The figures are idealised and rounded, and imbued with a healthy rose complexion consisting of white over purple enamel. Here and there the white enamel was applied thickly to enliven the surface and lend volume to hands, faces, horses, and the tops of waves, a process known asenlevage. The magnificent greyish-blue seas, covered in wavy black ripples are specific to the series. The translucent ochre and green hues of the landscape and purple hues of castles and clothes, lightened by the ingenious use of foil and the colour of the copper underneath, are equally characteristic. The lush gilding with which the scenes are detailed and heightened was applied after the enamelling was fired and is beautifully preserved in the Alnwick group.

[…]

The incorporation of Virgilian themes into the decorative arts became current in Quattrocento Italy and gained momentum in the 16th century. Fresco cycles include Dosso Dossi’s murals for the studio of Alfonso d’Este in Ferrara, Giulio Romano’s decoration of the Sala di Troia of the ducal palace in Mantua, and Niccolo dell’Abate’s large cycle at the castle at Scandiano.

[…]

Despite the use of images from a book published in 1502, scholars agree that the Master of the Aeneid was active circa 1530. This is chiefly due to the use of a translucentfondant, which is the enamel that covers the copper on the front and reverse in order to stabilise the object. Translucent fondants are thought to be an innovation that only gained traction after 1520.

Lot 5. FLORENTINE PAINTER, ACTIVE IN THE AMBIT OF CIMABUE, CIRCA 1285 – 1290
MADONNA AND CHILD
oil on panel: 27 5/8 by 18 in.; 70.2 by 45.7 cm.
Estimate: $600,000-800,000. This lot was withdrawn.

The Courthouse News Service  reports that a late 13th century Italian Madonna and Child offered during Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in New York on January 30, 2014, and subsequently withdrawn from the sale, was determined to have been stolen and was seized by US federal officials. According to the article:

Prosecutors claim the “Madonna and Child” was stolen from a safe deposit box in Geneva, Switzerland in 1986.

On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a forfeiture complaint listing the artwork as the defendant.

Sotheby’s, which is not accused of wrongdoing, said in an email statement that it “cooperated fully with the government on this matter.”

“We first became aware of an issue with the painting when it was flagged during our due diligence process; we voluntarily pulled the painting from auction before the U.S. government was involved and held it pending further instructions from relevant authorities,” Sotheby’s said. “We have no comment on the substance of the allegations in the government’s complaint as Sotheby’s has had no involvement in the underlying dispute.”

The complaint details a mysterious Feb. 6, 1991 report that Geneva police provided to Interpol investigating the theft allegations, which appear to involve a squabble over an inheritance from the late Camille Marie Rose Aprosio.
That report is thin on details about the lives of Aprosio and her family, and it is difficult to locate public information about them.
Born Aligardi, Aprosio owned half of the painting when she died in 1980, and left her interest to her heirs Paulette and Roger Aligardi, according to the complaint.

These heirs designated as a representative to that interest a man named Henri Aligardi, whose relationship to them is not revealed in the complaint. The other half of the interest belonged to a man named John Cunningham, prosecutors say.
“In or about 1986, Henri Aligardi and Cunningham placed the painting in a new safe deposit box at a separate branch of UBS in Geneva,” the complaint states.

“The heirs of Camille Marie Rose Aprosio reported that Cunningham had also ceded a percentage of his interest in the painting to two other individuals, Michael Hennessy and John Ryan. Hennessy and Ryan subsequently reported that Cunningham had removed the painting from UBS to an account held at Lloyd’s Bank in Geneva and solely in Cunningham’s name.”

The complaint does not state what happened to the piece for the more than two decades after it was reported missing.
In January this year, the painting was imported to the United States and consigned to Sotheby’s, which set a minimum bid price of “over $5,000,” prosecutors say.

That does not appear to be its actual value, but the statutory minimum to trigger a forfeiture action.
While this “Madonna and Child” was pulled before the Jan. 24 auction, the other works sold netted a total of more than $51 million, ranging from the tens of thousands to the millions of dollars, according to Sotheby’s website.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to assign a more specific value for the painting it wishes to seize.

The lot notes for the painting, which are no longer on Sotheby’s Web site, had no information about the work’s provenance. However, I have saved them and reproduce them below:

LITERATURE

A. Smart, “A Duccio discovery: an early ‘Madonna’ prototype”, in Apollo, vol. 120, 272 (1984), pp. 226 – 237 (as Duccio di Buoninsegna).

CATALOGUE NOTE

Figure 1.

An early and rare panel of monumental scale, this remarkably expressive and touching depiction of the Madonna and Child can be dated between circa 1285 and 1290. While the painting undoubtedly shares an affinity with models by Duccio di Buoninsegna, such as his Rucellai Madonna, now in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. P555), Andrea De Marchi and Laurence Kanter believe the author of this panel to have been Florentine rather than Sienese, and more heavily influenced by Duccio’s contemporary Cimabue. Two other compositions are known to follow the same design, one in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (fig. 1) and another in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin (fig. 2).

Figure 2.

All three paintings were certainly executed by different hands yet, while certain details vary (the representation of Saint Frances on the right hand side of the Oberlin picture, for example, and the red robe of the Christ Child in the Louvre picture), the compositions themselves are almost identical.

The gestures here are exquisitely expressive in their tenderness, the Madonna catches the Child’s right foot with the tips of two fingers, while caressing the skin above his ankle with her index finger, in a motion that appears natural and spontaneous. The same gesture is treated with a slight variation in each painting. In the Louvre picture, Christ’s left foot is outstretched and the fingers of the Madonna’s longer and less naturalistic hand do not quite convincingly hold the right foot; in the Oberlin picture meanwhile, Christ’s feet are crossed and the Madonna’s hand credibly grasps the Child’s heel. Also notable are variations in Christ’s gestures. In the Oberlin depiction, the infant appears persistent in commanding his mother’s attention; using her hand as a step, he pulls his weight upward with his right arm, which is wrapped around his mother’s neck. His left hand is positioned on the far side of the Madonna’s chin, gently yet insistently pulling her face toward him. In the present panel however, the gestures are more molified and the Child sits contentedly in his elevated position in the crook of his mother’s elbow. While he affectionately grasps his mother’s chin, his face is already nestled closely into her cheek, and he has no need to pull her toward him.

Laurence Kanter speculates that the three panels may have been based on a Byzantine prototype, perhaps from Assisi or Arezzo, one much venerated or celebrated for its miraculous properties and therefore worthy of reproduction.1 The geometricized scheme of mordant gilding representing folds in the drapery here is certainly a concept inspired by Byzantine methods, though all three paintings diverge slightly from that tradition, unable to resist the temptation to render the folds more naturalistically.2 This aspect is most noticeable in the delineation of the drapery folds on the head. Conventionally the folds here would form concentric semicircles, mirroring the edge of the Madonna’s veil, however, still visible on the forehead here are the remains of curving, vertical lines, in turn emanating finer, horizontal rays. This motif was used by Duccio and Cimabue at a moment when both experimented in the introduction of naturalism to the otherwise stark abstraction of Byzantine patterns.3 While the present painting adheres most faithfully to Byzantine prototypes, of the three panels here examined, it is by far the most advanced in terms of the volumetric treatment of the Christ Child’s shift.4 Rather than lie in comparatively flat lines, the gilded folds are arranged in a sophisticated system of contours, delineating the billowing fabric in the Christ Child’s sleeve and robe and displaying the artist’s superior understanding of volume and form. While Kanter dates the Oberlin and Louvre Madonnas to the 1270s, the advanced knowledge of volumetric form in the drapery suggest a slightly later dating for this painting, between the mid-1280s and 1290.5

We are grateful to both Andrea De Marchi and Laurence Kanter for suggesting the author of this work to be a Florentine painter active in the ambient of Cimabue upon firsthand inspection, and to Kanter for suggesting a dating between the mid-1280s and 1290.

1. L. Kanter, private oral communication, 19 November 2013.

2. L. Bellosi, Duccio alle origini della pittura senese, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2003, p. 154.

3. Ibid.

4. L. Kanter, private oral communication, 19 November 2013.

5. Ibid.

Lot 27. PETER DOIG B.1959 COUNTRY-ROCK (WING-MIRROR)
signed, dated 1999 and variously inscribed on the reverse
oil on canvas: 194.9 by 270cm.; 76 3/4 by 106 1/2 in.
Estimate in excess of £9 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of £7.5 million (£8,482,500 with the buyer’s premium)
Click on image to enlarge.

UPDATE: A raucous crowd at Sotheby’s this evening – the auctioneer repeatedly shush-ing the attendees and at one point pleading for “a little bit of peace and quiet.”  It didn’t work, but they still managed to sell £ 93,147,500 worth of the art.

As expected, the Bacon triptych was the top seller, hammering for £23,750,000 (£26,682,500 with the buyer’s premium or $45,400,274), while the Peter Doig came in at £7.5 million (£ 8,482,500 with fees), below the unpublished 9 million estimate, but still a record for the artist.

The first eleven lots came from the Sender Collection – all but the last one sold – though some lots, including Rosemarie Trockel’s knitted wool O.T. Death’s Head, Martin Kippenberger’s Untitled (Showcase with Egg Sculptures) and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #145 all hammered for or nearly £100,000 below their low estimates.

Major buy-ins included Anthony Caro’s Sunshine, Anish Kapoor’s Turning the World Upside Down, John Currin’s The Owens, and a large Anselm Kiefer woodcut Wege.

By contrast, the market for Lucio Fontana and Andy Warhol remained solid.

The market’s attention turns to Christie’s tomorrow evening.

ORIGINAL POST: The cover lot for Sotheby’s June 30, 2104, Evening Sale of Contemporary Art in London is a Peter Doig picture of a roadside with a rainbow-painted entrance to an underpass on Toronto’s Don River Parkway (BTW – Sotheby’s has updated their Web site to include print version of their sale including this one).

Don Valley Parkway rainbow. VINCE TALOTTA / TORONTO STAR

It’s one of the highest estimated works among the 59 lots offered for sale that includes reliably marketable works by Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, and others.

The sale opens with element works from the Sender Collection, continuing the disbursement the began with the recent contemporary art sales in New York. Urs Fisher’s Youyou, featuring two oversized metal nails (each about six feet long, opens the evening on a glib and cheeky note, followed by Rosemarie Trockel’s downbeat knitted wool O.T. (Death’s Heads) of 1990. The Sender group also includes two works by Damien Hirst – a butterfly painting titled Kingdom of Heaven and a 1992 medicine cabinet called Untitled AAAAAAA (Hirst began the medicine cabinet series in 1988 and it remains for me one of the best parts of his very uneven oeuvre) – and a quirky Martin Kippenberger sculpture, Untitled (Showcase with Egg Sculptures), executed one year before the artist died in 1997.

There are three lots of work by Francis Bacon led by the 1964 triptych Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on Light Ground).

Lot 15. FRANCIS BACON 1909 – 1992 THREE STUDIES FOR PORTRAIT OF GEORGE DYER (ON LIGHT GROUND)
oil on canvas, in three parts - each: 35.5 by 30cm.; 14 by 12in.
Executed in 1964.
Estimate: £15-20 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of £23,750,000 (£26,682,500 with the buyer’s premium or $45,400,274).
Click on image to enlarge.

From the lot notes:

Within the grand theatre of Francis Bacon’s life and work, George Dyer inhabits a position of tremendous importance. Appearing in over forty paintings, with as many created following his death as executed during his lifetime, Dyer wields a power unlike any other. His portrayal spans the full extent of human drama: at once vulnerable, brooding, romantic, absurd, heroic and tortured Bacon’s painterly incarnations traverse the sublime to the ridiculous. Painted within the first year of their meeting, Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on Light Ground) materialised at the height of Bacon’s affection and infatuation with his new lover. Charged with desire and framed within a serene pale ground, this mutating and vibrant portrait combines masterfully scumbled, scraped and diffused handling of paint with arresting intensity and consummate psychological depth. Importantly, there is only one other named work of George Dyer that precedes the moment ofThree Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (on Light Ground)’s execution: this is the first 14 by 12 inch format triptych dated to the very end of 1963.

A monochrome by Yves Klein – a small painting with a big price – from 1960, is being off loaded by a Swiss private collection. It carries a guarantee, so it will sell.

Lot 18. YVES KLEIN 1928 – 1962 UNTITLED BLUE MONOCHROME (IKB 271)
dated 1960 and dedicated Bertini avec l’amitie de Yves Klein on the overlap
dry pigment and synthetic resin on linen mounted on panel: 50 by 50cm.; 19 3/4 by 19 3/4 in.
Estimate: £2.5-3.5 million. This lot sold for a hammer price of £2.4 million (£2,770,500 with fees or $4,714,006)
Click on image to enlarge.

From the fulsome catalogue entry:

Expunging any trace of the human hand, Untitled Blue Monochrome (IKB 271) offers an untouched and pristine evocation of infinate space; Klein’s patented colour – a unique suspension of powdery raw pigment in liquid medium – envelopes the piece’s substantial square format, entirely covering all edges, to affect a hypnotic and truly enchanting intimation of sheer boundlessness through uninterrupted colour.

Lot 24. CY TWOMBLY (1928 – 2011) LYCIAN DRAWING (NIMPHIDIA)
signed with the artist’s initials, titled and dated Sept 26 82
oil, crayon and pencil on Fabriano paper: 100 by 70cm.; 39 3/8 by 27 1/2 in.
Estimate: £650,000-850,000. Bidding on this lot stopped at £520,000 and it failed to sell.
Click on image to enlarge.

From the lot notes:

First exhibited in Galerie Yvon Lambert in 1982, this work is part of a wider series completed in the same year, including the Lycian drawings, the Naxos drawings, and theSuma drawings. All of these were executed in the small town of Bassano just north of Rome, and all are initialled and dated in the same distinctive manner.

[…]

Lycia was an entire geopolitical region of Turkey in the Fifteenth and Fourteenth Centuries BC, known in the modern era for the exceptional preservation of its ruins and its language. In giving the viewer such a broad context, from history so distant it is all but imagined, Twombly declines the reader any sense of narrative and eschews any rational link with the composition below.

Lot 19. TRACEY EMIN (B. 1963) My Bed
mattress, linens, pillows and objects: 31 x 83 x 92 1/8in. (79 x 211 x 234cm.)
Executed in 1998
Estimate: £800,000-1,200,000 ($1,362,400-2,043,600). This lot sold for a hammer price of £2.2 million (£2,546,500 with fees or $4,336,689)
Click on image to enlarge.

UPDATE: A solid sale that brought in £99,413,500 with 12 of 75 lots unsold and none withdrawn. In a packed salesroom, the auction got off to a brisk start with a Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still, #25 leapt past it’s £150,000 high estimate to hammer at £200,000 ($£242,500 with fees or $412,997). Lot 3, Yves Klein’s Relief planétaire (RP 9) surpassed its £700,000 high estimate hitting £780,000 (£938,500 with fees or $1,598,265), immediately followed by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Amanti (Lovers) from 1962-66, which hammered at £2 million (£2,322,500 with fees or $3,955,217) against an estimate of £1-1.5 million. Several more works by Italian artists all sold including Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Attese (a white canvas with ten vertical slashes), hammered at £5.3 million (£6,018,500 with fees or $10,249,505), against a £4-6 million estimate to the same bidder who purchased lot 2, a small Jean Dubuffet, Paysage (Landscape), featuring butterfly wings on board.

Lot 11, Roy Lichtenstein’s three-foot diameter Mirror #8, saw a sustained bidding war, hammering at £1.7 million (£1,986,500 with fees or $3,383,009), £1 million over it’s £700,000 high estimate. Peter Doig’s Gasthof (Lot 14), from 2002-2004, ably made a hammer price of £8.8 million (£9,938,500 with fees or $16,925,265), against a £5million high estimate – and establishing a new auction record for the artist.

Lot 16, the Francis Bacon Study for Head of Lucian Freud opened at £5 million climbed at £500,000 increments to £9 million, then moved at smaller intervals to a hammer price of £10.2 million (£11,506,500 with fees or $19,595,568).  Next up, Frank Auerbach’s Primrose Hill, Autumn was the first of two buy-ins before Tracey Emin’s My Bed, which opened at £650,00, hammered at a record £2.2 million (£2,546,500 with fees or $4,336,689), a clean £1 million over its £1.2 million high estimate – to boisterous applause.

Lot 29, Andy Warhol’s Self -Portrait (Fright Wig), opened at £4 million and hammered at £5.6 million (£6,354,500 with fees or $10,821,713), below its £6 million low estimate. The Christopher Wool’s Untitled (HA AH), opened at opened at £4 million and hammered at it low estimate of £5.5 million (£6,242,500 with fees of $10,630,977).

David Ostrowski’s F (Dann lieber nein),  for which there were ten telephone bidders, zipped for its £20,000 opening bid to hammer for £85,000 (£104,500 with fees or $177,963) to a telephone bidder. The buyer of the Doig picked up lot 39, Urs Fischer’s Vain Whining for a hammer price of Frühstück now (Self-Portrait)350,000 (£422,500 with fees or $719,517), above the £300,000 high estimate. The three Albert Oehlens all performed well: lot 44,  Frühstück now (Self-Portrait) hammered for £900,000 (£1,082,500 with fees or $1,843,497) over a high estimate of £400,000; lot 45, Ohne Titel (Untitled) sold for £500,000 (£602,500 with fees or $1,026,057), exceeding the £280,000 high estimate; and lot 46, Ohne Titel (Untitled) made £400,000 (£482,500 with fees or $821,697), past the £350,000 high estimate.  The quartet of Richter panels, Abstrakte Bilder, opened at £2 million and was bought in at £2.8 million.

The last major battle of the evening was for Roy Lichtenstein’s Purist Painting with Bottles from 1975, estimated at £2-3 million, it hammered for £3.3 million (£3,778,500 with fees or $6,434,785). One bidder in the room picked up two works by Andy Warhol, lot 71, Race Riot for £600,000 (£722,500 with fees or $1,230,417), surpassing the £450,000 high estimate), followed by lot 72, Ambulance Disaster for a hammer price of £480,000 (£578,500 with fees or $985,185), over the £450,000 high estimate. The auctioneer signed off by wishing “good luck to America” in the World Cup starting in a matter of moments.

ORIGINAL POST: The top lot by estimate in Christie’s Evening Sale of Contemporary Art in London on July 1, 2014, is Francis Bacon’s study of a portrait of Lucien Freud – but the top lot by interest or buzz factor is Travey Emin’s My Bed of 1988 being sold from the Saatchi collection. There’s also the requisite Richters, Warhols, Fontanas, Basquiats and three early paintings by Albert Oehlen.

The lot notes for the Emin include this wonderful quote from the artist that provides considerable insight:

‘I had a kind of mini nervous breakdown in my very small flat and didn’t get out of bed for four days. And when I did finally get out of bed, I was so thirsty I made my way to the kitchen crawling along the floor. My flat was in a real mess- everything everywhere, dirty washing, filthy cabinets, the bathroom really dirty, everything in a really bad state. I crawled across the floor, pulled myself up on the sink to get some water, and made my way back to my bedroom, and as I did I looked at my bedroom and thought, ‘Oh, my God. What if I’d died and they found me here?’ And then I thought, ‘What if here wasn’t here? What if I took out this bed-with all its detritus, with all the bottles, the shitty sheets, the vomit stains, the used condoms, the dirty underwear, the old newspapers- what if I took all of that out of this bedroom and placed it into a white space? How would it look then?’ And at that moment I saw it, and it looked fucking brilliant. And I thought, this wouldn’t be the worst place for me to die; this is a beautiful place that’s kept me alive. And then I took everything out of my bedroom and made it into an installation. And when I put it into the white space, for some people it became quite shocking. But I just thought it looked like a damsel in distress, like a woman fainting or something, needing to be helped.’ (T. Emin, quoted in ‘Tracey Emin Interview: Julian Schnabel’, http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/traceyemin/press/376, [accessed 14 May 2014])

Lot 16. Francis Bacon (1909-1992) Study for Head of Lucian Freud
titled and dated ‘Study for Head of Lucian Freud 1967′ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas: 14 x 12in. (35.5 x 30.5cm.) Painted in 1967
Estimate on Request. This lot made a hammer price of £10.2 million (£11,506,500 with fees or $19,595,568)

From the lot notes:

Having spent its entire life in the collection of Roald Dahl and subsequently in the collection of his estate, Study for Head of Lucian Freud, 1967 is one of only two single portrait heads that Francis Bacon executed of his friend and sometime rival, the chronicler of the human condition, Lucian Freud. The essence of Freud emerges from a sumptuously thick and complex surface comprised of lustrous undulations of crisp white titanium mixed with sweeps of emerald, all set against a velvety black void. His features appear and dissolve in the alternating sweeps of gestured paint, with flecks of vermilion articulating Freud’s existence all the more acutely. Darkly haloed by a thin trail of emerald tracing the outline of Freud’s crown, there is more than representation on display here – this is the individual presented as their very essence. It is this very quality that made Study for Head of Lucian Freud so compelling to Dahl, who was to acquire it in the same year as its execution.

Lot 29. Andy Warhol (1928-1987) Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
stamped with the Estate of Andy Warhol stamp and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts stamp and numbered ‘PA 40.021’ (on the overlap); stamped with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts stamp (on the reverse); numbered ‘PA 40.021’ (on the stretcher)
acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen: 40 x 40in. (101.6 x 101.6cm.) Executed in 1986
Estimate: £6-9 million ($10,218,000-15,327,000). This lot sold for a hammer price of £5.6 million (£6,354,500 with fees or $10,821,713).

This is a late work by the artist, completed one year before his death.  It carries a third party guarantee, so it will sell.

Lot 32. CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955) Untitled
signed, numbered and dated ‘WOOL 1990 W3’ (on the reverse)
enamel on aluminum: 108 x 72in. (274.3 x 182.8cm.) Executed in 1990
Estimate: £5.5-7.5 million ($9,366,500-12,772,500). This lot sold for a hammer price of £5.5 million (£6,242,500 with fees of $10,630,977).

This work also carries a third party guarantee. From the sale catalogue:

With its giant letters stacked and boldly writ, Untitled collides and confuses the senses with its confrontational urban poetry. Both nihilistic and witty in its tone, the colossal ‘HA AH’ gridded out over two rows extending nearly three metres high is at once the punch line of a joke and a questioning conversation, palindromic word-play and onomatopoeic reflex. Executed in 1990, it is perhaps no coincidence that its ambitious verbiage, ‘HA AH’ rhymes with ‘Dada’, since it is a work whose confident and bold execution, with its thick dripping black letters, overrides the apparent questioning sensitivity of its statement. But more than just a play on words, ‘HA AH’ captures the anti-rational aspects of Dada – its title embodying the multilingual, childish, and nonsensical connotations celebrated in the movement. Untitled was conceived at the end of a decade where painting’s right to exist had been deeply questioned by Douglas Crimp’s essay ‘The Death of Painting’ in 1981.

Lot 48. Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) Abstrakte Bilder
each: signed, dated and numbered sequentially ‘760-1-4 Richter 1992’ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas, in four parts-each: 78 ¾ x 27 ½in. (200 x 70cm.) Painted in 1992
Estimate: £4-6 million ($6,812,000-10,218,000). Bidding on this lot stopped at £2.8 million and it failed to sell.

From the catalogue:

Towering over the viewer, Abstrakte Bilder is a rare four panel painting from the height of Gerhard Richter’s abstract practice. Executed in 1992, the work was featured as the centrepiece of Richter’s landmark installation at Documenta IX in Kassel of the same year and was later exhibited at his comprehensive travelling retrospective held first at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris in 1993 and Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn in 1994, which gave birth to Richter’s then most significant catalogue raisonné publication. With its opulent visual surface, Abstrakte Bilder hails from the finest period in Richter’s abstraction, as the paintings created between 1989 and 1994 represent the purest articulation of the artist’s improvised technique. Indeed the early 1990s was a time of great professional recognition for Richter, his breakthrough exhibition at Tate Gallery, London, took place in 1991 and Documenta IX was the first major presentation of his work in Germany since the showing of 18 October 1977 in Krefeld in 1989.