Sotheby’s Old Masters Week in New York generated a total of $73,052,668. The Thursday sale of Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture brought $62,081,477, led by Canaletto’s View of the Churches of the Redentore and San Giacomo from the Estate of Lady Forte at $5,682,500 and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Lucretia at $5,122,500. The Old Master Drawings sale realized $5,640,813, including a Piero del Pollaiuolo portrait sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum for $1,398,500. Friday’s Masterworks and Old Master & 19th Century European Art added $5,330,387. The top ten works all exceeded $2 million, with broad international bidding and strong Italian painting demand.
The 18-year-old Stéphane Tétreault, a student at Université de Montréal, has become the custodian of a 1707 Stradivarius cello named Paganini, Countess of Stainlein. Reuning & Son reported the purchase price was well above a $6 million minimum bid, described as a world record by Strad Magazine.
Francis Bacon is mentioned as the artist, with the painting Portrait of Henrietta Moraes highlighted as part of Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art sale in London. The artwork is described as 65 x 56 inches (165 x 142 cm), oil on canvas, created in 1963, with the estimate listed as on request and sale number 8052.
The Fish Market monotype by Camille Pissarro, stolen from a French museum in 1981, is repatriated to France. The piece was seized by ICE HSI after being traced through Interpol and Sotheby's, and was officially forfeited to the United States before repatriation to France.
Vanessa Greco reports that Stéphane Tétreault, a Montreal cellist, borrowed the Countess of Stainlein, a Stradivari cello estimated to be over 300 years old. The cello sold at auction for just over $6 million to a patroness from Montreal, who arranged for Tétreault to play it as part of its ongoing history.
Maegliete Museum reported the painting Olympia by Rene Magritte, valued at about 30 million euros (roughly 30 million yuan), was stolen in 2009 and returned two years later. The artwork discussed is Olympia, a canvas by René Magritte featuring a reclining female figure with a giant conch on her abdomen. The painting’s market value is cited as approximately 30 million euros. The museum and authorities later confirmed the work’s safe return and discussed whether to rehang it.
Christie’s announced 38 remaining works from Elizabeth Taylor’s collection for its London Impressionist and Modern sales, led by a Van Gogh view of Saint-Rémy.
The NPR Weekend Edition Sunday story discusses the sale of Bernard Greenhouse's Stradivarius cello, The Countess of Stanlein, by his daughter Elena Delbanco and her husband Nicholas Delbanco. The instrument is a 300-year-old Stradivarius, one of about 60 cellos by Antonio Stradivari, with expected prices in the millions and a potential record sale of around six million dollars.
Elena Delbanco and Nicholas Delbanco discuss selling Bernard Greenhouse's 300-year-old Stradivarius cello, The Countess of Stanlein, which is one of only 60 Stradivarius cellos and could fetch millions; the instrument belonged to Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio.
Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi are named as top earners in 2011, surpassing Picasso in overall sales for the year according to Bloomberg and Artprice. The article discusses Daqian’s rising prominence, the role of Chinese collectors, and mentions portrait artist Zhang Xiaogang as a big name; it also profiles Yang Bing, a prolific Chinese contemporary art collector profiled by The Wall Street Journal.
The article reports on a PayPal dispute in which a buyer disputes the authenticity of a purportedly rare violin and PayPal instructs the buyer to destroy the instrument to obtain a refund. The piece notes a buyer who destroyed the violin and cites PayPal’s SNAD policy allowing destruction if the item is deemed counterfeit.
The article describes a burglary in Mont Carmel where an irreplaceable violin made by the late Kim Vincent was stolen, along with a Taylor guitar and other items. Philippe LeBlanc is quoted expressing how devastating the loss is and mentions a potential lead involving a Kijiji post about an Island-made fiddle.
The article reports a study by Claudia Fritz and Joseph Curtin presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which professional violinists could not reliably distinguish old master violins by Guarneri del Gesu and Stradivari from newer high-quality violins. The study involved three old master violins and three newer ones, tested in a low-light setting with masking aids to prevent identifying cues.
The article discusses a double-blind test where professional violinists tried to identify Stradivarius violins versus modern copies, with six violins tested and results indicating limited ability to distinguish. Joseph Curtin and Claudia Fritz are named as researchers involved in the study.