Displaying items by tag: buyers

There’s more than $2.1 billion of art for sale at the New York auctions next month. Almost half of it, including an Andy Warhol painting belonging to billionaire Steven A. Cohen, already has a buyer before the first paddle goes up.

When the two-week sales start Nov. 4, $1 billion worth of paintings and sculptures are guaranteed to sell by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips at minimum prices regardless of what happens in the salesroom. The companies are lining up deep-pocketed backers for the guarantees or financing them with their own money -- a risky proposition because they can end up owning the works if there are no takers.

A painting catalogued simply as “Oil on Board, Triple Portrait with Lady Fainting” sold today, 22 September for $870,000 at Nye & Company Auctions in Bloomfield, New Jersey, against an estimate of $500-$800. The sleeper hit (lot 216), is believed to be a long-lost panel by a teenaged Rembrandt.

The 12.5in x 10in panel was described by the auction house as “Continental School, 19thC, appears unsigned”, and potential buyers were advised that the condition included “paint loss, some restoration to paint, wood cracks.”

After vigorously fighting claims that they knowingly sold a string of fake Abstract Expressionist paintings totalling $60m, the now-defunct Knoedler Gallery and its former director Ann Freedman have quietly settled three of the ten lawsuits brought against them by angry buyers. The settlement terms were not disclosed.

Two of the cases against them, brought in Manhattan federal court, were closed this summer. The Manny Silverman and Richard Feigen galleries settled their suit last Tuesday, August 4.

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.

The Pablo Picasso canvas that set a record on May 11 at Christie's for the most expensive work ever sold at auction, at $179.4 million, may have gone to a buyer from Qatar.

Unnamed art world sources are telling the "New York Post" that the buyer of "Femmes d'Alger (Version “O")" (1955), was billionaire former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. Buyers at auction typically maintain their anonymity by bidding via phone; the Picasso was won by an anonymous telephone bidder represented by Brett Gorvy, international head of contemporary art for Christie's.

The auction of American Art at Sotheby’s New York totaled 38.3 million, approaching its high estimate of $39.7 million and with a strong sell-through rate of 85.4% by lot. Nearly 60% of all sold lots in the sale exceeded their pre-sale high estimates.

Elizabeth Goldberg, Head of Sotheby’s American Art Department, commented: “Our sale today confirmed the vigor and interest in the American Art field that we have been experiencing in recent years. We strive to offer the highest-quality examples we can find, across a broad range of property and price points.

On March 17, Christie’s hosted its first-ever evening sale dedicated to Asian art in New York. The occasion was the first offering from the prized Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection, regarded as the most prestigious — not to mention largest — private collection of Asian art to hit the auction block. Thanks to the freshness of the material and the pedigreed provenance, the house had no trouble securing buyers for all 57 lots, and with a whopping $61,107,500, total, the results demonstrated strength across all areas of the market for Indian, Himalayan, Southeast Asian, Chinese, and Japanese art.

The sale began promptly at 6 p.m., with fierce participation from telephone bidders and individuals in the room for a superb gilt-bronze figure of a seated bear from China’s Western Han Dynasty (206 BC).

On Sunday, February 1, 2015, the 61st iteration of the inimitable Winter Antiques Show drew to a close at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Over the course of the ten-day event, collectors, first-time buyers, museum curators, interior designers, and dealers, took to the show floor to browse and snap up fine art, furniture, and decorative objects from antiquity through the 1960s (Fig. 1).

The show kicked off on Thursday, January 22, 2015, with an Opening Night Preview Party that welcomed nearly 2,000 attendees, including Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Arie and Coco Kopelman, Ellie Cullman, Thomas Jayne, Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, Sandra Nunnerley, and John Douglas Eason. The Preview Party, which benefited the East Side House Settlement, a community-based organization in the South Bronx, gave guests an opportunity to peruse and purchase works before the show opened to the public on Friday, January 23, 2015.

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.