Displaying items by tag: consignors

In January, Sotheby’s will offer an American folk art collection with some dark and risqué imagery. The auction consignors, Petra and Stephen Levin, philanthropists based in Florida, had filled their Vermont home with woodcarvings of prostitutes wrapped around clients ($30,000 to $50,000 for two pairs) and a shoeshine boy leering at a female customer’s legs ($30,000 to $50,000). In a diorama of a bar crowded with disheveled drunks ($20,000 to $30,000), cigarette butts are smeared on the floor.

According to The Art Newspaper, Christie’s has boosted its seller’s commission in its contracts with consignors. The auction house will now charge 2% of the hammer price of a work that meets or exceeds its high estimate. After the 2% performance fee, Christie’s charges commission using a sliding scale based on a work’s final hammer price.

In order to attract powerful sellers offering blue-chip works, auction houses often waive the seller’s commission for preferred clients. Christie’s new 2% performance fee, which is in addition to the fixed buyer’s premium (the percentage of the hammer price paid by the buyer), ensures that the auction house will receive a portion of the profits from both sides of a blockbuster sale.

Sotheby’s auction house is betting big on the latest global art market boom with financial filings showing the house is increasing its borrowing from corporate lenders in order to extend more guarantees to potential consigners. According to an 8-K filing made with the SEC on August 25, Sotheby’s is upping the commitments from lender GE Capital to $850 million from $600 million.

Among the goals listed for the increased borrowing are raising “the maximum permissible amount of net outstanding auction guarantees (.i.e auction guarantees less the impact of related risk and reward sharing arrangements) from $300 million to $600 million.”

The New York Court of Appeals reversed a decision that could have forced auction houses to reveal the identities of consignors. The original ruling was made by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in 2012 and declared that state law required that buyers be allowed to know the names of sellers in post-auction paperwork in order for the sale to be considered official.  

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed against New York auctioneer William J. Jenack. After Jenack sold a Russian antique in 2008, the buyer refused to pay, claiming that the post-sale documentation had not identified the seller. The ruling on Tuesday, December 17, stated that Jenack had provided sufficient information to the buyer for the sale to be considered binding.   

The Dallas-based auction company, Heritage, will host a number of sales featuring objects from Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s (1841-1919) personal archive starting on September 19, 2013 in New York. Items include the artist’s eyeglasses, funeral receipts, clothing, paperwork, photos, medals, statues and books signed by fellow artists. The sale will also include letters and writings by Renoir that detail his travels, inspirations for paintings and relationships with models and dealers.

During the 1970s, Renoir’s heirs moved from France to Canada and then to Texas, taking the artist’s belongings with them. The trove, which will be broken into 150 lots, has been stored in various spots across North America until now. Scholars are hoping that an institutional buyer will step up and make a bulk purchase as the collection holds significant historic value.

The collection was put up for auction once before in 2005 but it failed to sell. Following the sale, anonymous buyers from Arizona purchased the lot. They are now consigning the works to Heritage.

March 9–10, 2013 Auction

93 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH
www.northeastauctions.com; 603.433.8400; or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This March, Northeast Auctions will offer collections from an all-star cast of consignors. Selections include American furniture deaccessioned from the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston; Historical Blue Staffordshire deaccessioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Rhode Island furniture from the estate of an Isham family member; and furniture from a Boston estate, among which is a Salem chest by John Chipman. Property of various owners includes two pieces of New York silver: a Peter Van Dyke caster (1730–1740) and a George Ridout salver (ca. 1745) with presentation inscription from Peter and Sarah Van Brugh to their grand-daughter Sarah Livingston.