Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

Auction house Sotheby's on Monday reported that its net income climbed 31 percent as revenue from its auctions of art and other valuables jumped.

For the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Sotheby's earned $96.2 million, or $1.38 per share, compared with $73.6 million, or $1.09 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

According to estimates from FactSet, analysts were expecting $1.32 per share, on average. These estimates generally exclude one-time items.

Revenue rose to $318 million from $218 million a year earlier. Auction and related revenue rose 47 percent to $310.8 million. Sotheby's said its sales were strong around the world.

Sotheby's will offer a large Venetian view of the Rialto Bridge painted by Francesco Guardi valued at around 20 million pounds ($30 million).

The auctioneer called the work "one of the greatest masterpieces of Venetian view painting ever executed." It will go under the hammer in London on July 6.

It is one of four works painted by Guardi on such a grand scale, all executed at around the same time in the late 1760s.

Next week's Old Masters sale in New York includes a Titian, a Rubens, and an unusual portrait of a man with a Hebrew tablet proclaiming the Torah.  Here are some highlights to tickle your checkbook:

Until brief appearances this fall on a Sotheby's shopping tour, Titian's Sacra Conversazione, offered by a private collector, hadn't been publicly seen since 1978 and not seen in the U.S. since 1957 -- ironically, at the Cleveland Museum, which is dumping 32 Old Masters at this very sale.

Titian could do it all -- portraits, altarpieces, mythologies -- and his art was so highly valued in his lifetime that he kept kings waiting for his work.  But be forewarned:  He had a big workshop, and his hand here may be confined to the Madonna and Child.