Monthly archive
23 headlines
Source-linked reporting
classical-music.com
Two 24-carat gold-plated violins encrusted with diamonds, rubies and sapphires were created in a partnership between Bridge and Theo Fennell and are being played by the electric violin group FUSE, featuring Linzi Stoppard and Ben Lee. Each violin is valued at over £2 million. FUSE previously collaborated with Swarovski to create crystal violins worth $1.5 million each.
theglobeandmail.com
Yi-Jia Susanne Hou is the Canadian violinist who will perform one final time with the London Symphony Orchestra using a $6-million violin made in 1735 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, loaned through the Stradivari Society; the instrument, dubbed the ‘vixen,’ has a storied history including associations with Fritz Kreisler and Lady Mary Portman.
nordonart.wordpress.com
The article discusses Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain, a Mediterranean port at sunrise with the Embarkation of Saint Paula for Jerusalem, which sold for £5,066,500 (£4.45 million hammer price) in Christie’s December 2013 Old Masters Evening Sale. It notes the sale’s overall results, including 12 of 46 lots not selling and a highlighted piece by Marten van Cleve I, Saint George’s Day, which exceeded its estimates.
prnewswire.co.uk
Yi-Jia Susanne Hou with the London Symphony Orchestra records and creates a TV documentary with the 1735 Fritz Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, valued at $6 million, before returning it to the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
pagesix.com
Francis Bacon triptych sold for $142 million at Christie’s to Acquavella Gallery on behalf of a client identified as Her Excellency Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. Sheikha Mayassa is described as the most powerful person in art, head of the Qatar Museums Authority, and involved in major acquisitions for Qatar’s cultural projects.
neveryetmelted.com
The post on Never Yet Melted discusses Leonardo da Vinci's concept of the viola organista and reports that Slawomir Zubrzycki has built a functioning version of the instrument, incorporating a piano-like keyboard, spinning wheels with horse-tail hair, and a crank-driven mechanism. The piece notes that da Vinci’s designs appear in Codex Atlanticus and reflects on the historical absence of evidence that he or others built the instrument in his time.
smithsonianmag.com
The article discusses Leonardo da Vinci’s proposed viola organista and how Slawomir Zubrzycki recreated a working version, performing at the International Royal Cracow Piano Festival. It describes the instrument’s design with sixty-one steel strings, four spinning wheels wrapped in horse-tail hair, a pedal-driven crankshaft, and how the keys press strings against the wheels to produce tones.
slate.com
The article discusses Leonardo da Vinci’s late-15th-century viola organista design, rebuilt by Polish pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki, and features a video performance with analysis of its sound and mechanism.
dekerivers.wordpress.com
The post covers violinist Augustin Hadelich performing with the Madison Symphony Orchestra using the Ex-Kiesewetter Stradivarius dating to 1723. The article is by dekerivers on CAFFEINATED POLITICS and is dated November 17, 2013.
paulfrasercollectibles.com
Warhol's Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) sold for $105.4 million at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, setting a new artist record for Andy Warhol. The work originated from the Death and Disaster series (1963) and is the only large Car Crash piece not in a museum; the other three are at MoMA, Kunstmuseum Basel, and MAK Vienna.
irishexaminer.com
The article discusses Leonardo da Vinci’s imagined viola organista and its revival by Polish pianist-instrument maker Slawomir Zubrzycki, who built a functional version in Krakow after about three years and more than 5,000 hours.
bbc.co.uk
Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) sold for $142 million (£89 million) at Christie's in New York, setting a new record for a artwork at auction. The triptych, created in 1969 at London's Royal College of Art, eclipsed Edvard Munch's The Scream from the previous year. Jeff Koons' Balloon Dog (Orange) also set a living-artist record at the same auction.
observer.com
The Christie’s New York fall postwar and contemporary sale grossed $691.6 million, including a new all-time high for a publicly traded artwork, Three Studies of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon, which sold for $142.4 million with premium. Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4 million, making him the world’s most expensive artist at the time; the sale also saw several artists set records including Wade Guyton, Christopher Wool, Vija Celmins, Lucio Fontana, Ad Reinhardt, Donald Judd, Willem de Kooning and Wayne Thiebaud.
theatlantic.com
Francis Bacon’s triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, sold for $142,405,000 at Christie's, setting a new auction record for a work of art. The piece comprises three panels from the 1969 portrait of Lucian Freud, and this sale followed years of assembling the panels into a single work for exhibition and sale.
bloomberg.com
The article reports Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud selling for $142.4 million at Christie’s in New York, setting a new auction record. It notes the sale exceeded Edvard Munch’s The Scream, sold by Sotheby’s in May 2012, by more than $20 million, and the work was sold to Acquavella Galleries.
Christie’s
Christie’s reported a record SFr158.7 million across its Geneva watches, jewels and wine auctions, including new benchmarks for watches and diamonds.
press.christies.com
Christie’s post-war and contemporary art evening sale in New York achieved $691,583,000, the highest auction total in art market history. The release highlights a $142.4 million Francis Bacon triptych and $58.4 million for Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog, with 10 world auction record prices and broad international demand. Artists named include Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Lucio Fontana, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
cbc.ca
Francis Bacon's 1969 triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold for 142,405,000 US dollars at Christie's postwar and contemporary art sale in New York, setting a record for the most expensive artwork sold at auction. The sale price surpassed Edvard Munch's The Scream, which sold for about 119.9 million US dollars in 2012.
patch.com
Elizabeth Pitcairn brings her 1720 “Red Violin” to Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn for a concert on November 16, dedicated to her cousin Lachlan Pitcairn, a longtime patron of classical music who died at 91.
classicalite.com
Min-Jin Kym’s Stradivarius, nicknamed the ex-Kym, will be sold by Tarisio. Online bids start at £1 million with potential final bids above £2 million, and a portion of proceeds will benefit authorities involved in recovery.
wosu.org
The article reports on a violin claimed to have been owned by Wallace Hartley, bandmaster of the Titanic, being sold for about $1.7 million. It notes skepticism about the attribution and recounts prior claims.
press.christies.com
The Giacometti painting set a new record at $33 million in Christie’s post-sale release. The page reports running tally for Christie’s week of Impressionist & Modern Art sales and notes strong participation from bidders worldwide, including emerging participation from Mainland China.
artobserved.com
Andy Warhol’s Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) is highlighted in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale coverage. The article discusses Sotheby’s record sale evening, with total sales over $380 million, beating the previous record of $375 million, and notes a high sell-through rate (88.5% by lot, nearly 95% by value) and commentary from Head of Contemporary Art Alexander Rotter and Auctioneer Tobias Meyer.