Displaying items by tag: Auction

When Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Gertrud Loew-Felsövanyi (1902) sold at Sotheby's London in June for $39 million, many speculated about the buyer's identity.

Now, an investigation conducted by the Austrian daily Der Standard has revealed that the painting was not bought by Ronald Lauder as was previously assumed. The buyer is Joe Lewis, a British billionaire who's made his fortune in foreign exchange market (forex) trading in the early 1990s.

The legal owner of Henry Moore's sculpture Draped Seated Woman (1957-58) is Tower Hamlets Council, the High Court in London ruled on July 8, ending a long-running legal battle with Bromley Council over the work.
 
The former mayor of the east London borough, Lutfur Rahman consigned the work to auction in February 2013. But the sale was postponed after the Art Fund charity and the Museum of London discovered evidence that suggested ownership of the sculpture lay with Bromley Council in south London.

A painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder fetched 9.3 million pounds ($14.3 million) at Sotheby’s in London, an auction record for the German Renaissance artist.

The sale of the Cranach and other works tallied 39.3 million pounds, toward the lower end of the presale estimate. Wednesday’s result represented a 42 percent drop from an equivalent auction a year ago, when 68.3 million pounds worth of Old Master and British paintings were sold. Of 57 lots offered, 20 failed to find buyers, while auction records were set for five artists.

Rare furniture, paintings and exotica from the collection of leading American arts and crafts figure Lockwood de Forest II will be auctioned by Bonhams in Sydney this month, having been consigned from the designer’s grandson who lives in Australia.

The renowned New York designer, painter and interior decorator was a prominent member of the 19th-century Aesthetic Movement and famously worked alongside Louis C. Tiffany, creator of the iconic Tiffany stained-glass lamp, in the 1880s.

LONDON — A rare full-length portrait by Gustav Klimt sold for 24.8 million pounds with fees, or about $39 million, at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Wednesday.

Sotheby’s had placed an estimate of £12 million to £18 million (about $19 million to $28 million) on Klimt’s 1902 portrait of Gertrud Loew, the 19-year-old daughter of Dr. Anton Loew, the director of a prominent Viennese private sanatorium that treated fin-de-siècle luminaries such as Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Klimt himself.

The portrait, which had never previously been offered on the open market, was won by an unknown buyer...

Christie's kept the international art auction caravan rolling with an impressionist and modern art sale that brought in $113 million (£71.88 million) on Tuesday.

A Claude Monet study of mauve irises swaying against a pale blue sky in his Giverny garden was the star lot at $17 million. A 1969 Pablo Picasso head, with all the startling vigour of his old age, came in next at $7 million.

More than 200 lots of diamonds, rare gemstones, and signed designer jewels brought $27.6 million at Christie’s New York sale of Important Jewels on June 16.

The top lot, a cushion-cut Kashmir sapphire of 21.71 carats, realized $4.2 million. Signed by Cartier, flanked on both sides by trapeze-shaped diamonds, and mounted in platinum, the ring was part of the collection of Margaret Adderley Kelly, which saw a 100% sell-through totaling just shy of $10 million.

Into first editions and have half a million to spare? You are in luck then: a section of a 15th century edition of the Gutenberg Bible will be auctioned off on June 19 at Sotheby's New York, with a presale estimate between $500,000 and $700,000.

The eight-leaf section, taken from a bible printed in 1455, comprises the entire Book of Esther, preceded by the end of the Book of Judith and the prologue of Jerome to Esther, and followed by the prologue of Jerome to Job.

Russborough House has decided not to sell an important Rubens oil painting for which it obtained an export licence earlier this year.

The painting, titled "Portrait of a Monk, Bust-Length," was one of three by Rubens for which Russborough obtained an export licence on March 16th last. The other two are among a group of nine pictures from Russborough due to be auctioned at Christie’s in London in the coming weeks.

A dazzling array of Art Deco jewels is set to headline Christie’s sale of Important Jewels in New York on June 16.

The top lot of the auction is an Art Deco diamond pendant necklace suspending a D-color, internally flawless diamond of 16.24 carats that is estimated to achieve between $1.6 million and $2 million.