Christie’s reports a running total for 20th Century Week with totals in three currencies: £189,246,375, $250,275,011, and €219,736,208. The release published February 28, 2019, covers Impressionist & Modern, American and Latin American Art sales in London, with detailed sale results for the day and the works highlighted, including Renoir’s Vase d'anémones and records for André Brasilier and Georges (Jirí) Kars.
Paul Signac’s Le Port au soleil couchant, Opus 236 (Saint-Tropez) (1892) was highlighted in Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sales in London, where the auction house achieved £165.7 million ($219.5 million) overall. The event saw top lots including Paul Cézanne’s Nature morte de pêches et poires (1885–87) hammering at £18.5 million ($24.4 million).
Paul Signac’s Le Port au soleil couchant, Opus 236 (Saint-Tropez), 1892, sold for a record-breaking $25,839,156 at Christie’s London Impressionist and Modern sale. The auction realized £165.7 million ($219.5 million) with 67 of 82 lots sold, led by a Monet waterlily pond with a weeping willow that failed to sell. The sale’s total was the second-highest for an evening Impressionist sale in London, following the £176.9 million achieved in February 2014.
Claude Monet’s Le Palais Ducal (1908) sold for £27.5 million / $36.2 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist auction. The work had been in the same family collection since 1926 when acquired by Erich Goeritz; it set a record for a Venetian view by Monet. Helena Newman commented on the strong sales and global bidding activity.
René Magritte’s L'Etoile du Matin (1938) is noted among works in the Sotheby’s London sale. The edition highlights Monet’s Le Palais Ducal (1908) topping the auction with a £25-35 million estimate and achieving £27.5 million. Alberto Giacometti’s painting of his wife Annette sold for around £3.2 million, while Camille Pissarro’s girl in a flower garden sold for £1.7 million; Japanese bidders and buyers from Taiwan also participated actively in bidding.
Henry Ford’s Stradivarius, a 1703 violin, is loaned to Detroit Symphony Orchestra associate concert master Kimberly Kaloyanides Kennedy. The instrument, nicknamed the Rougemont, was part of Ford’s collection and the loan marks a notable return to performance.
Monet's Le Palais Ducal sold for £27.5 million in Sotheby’s London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale; Magritte and Picabia lead the Surrealist sale with works by Egon Schiele and Bauhaus-era pieces also featuring in the auction.
Claude Monet, Le Palais Ducal (1908) sold for £27.5 million ($36.4 million) in Sotheby’s London sale. Egon Schiele, Triestiner Fischerboot (Trieste Fishing Boat) (1912) sold for £10.7 million ($14.2 million). Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mädchen auf dem Diwan (Girl on a Divan) (1906) sold for $5.08 million. A deaccessioned Kirchner work at MoMA sold for £3.84 million ($5.08 million). The sales totaled £87.7 million (about $116.3 million) with multiple notable results.
The Lucerne Festival Strings Chamber Orchestra in Lucerne, Switzerland announced the acquisition of the 1672 Sellière Stradivarius violin on loan to the ensemble. The instrument, formerly owned by Austrian industrialist Theodor Hämmerle and previously played by Wolfgang Schneiderhan, is now to be played by Daniel Dodds, the ensemble's Music Director.
Sotheby’s announces Contemporary Curated, the season’s first contemporary art auction, on March 1, 2019 in New York. The sale highlights works from Post-War and Contemporary periods, including pieces by Olga de Amaral, Louise Bourgeois, Sam Gilliam, Eva Hesse, Yayoi Kusama, Kerry James Marshall, and Faith Ringgold, among others.
The piece discusses Cremona, Italy, and the Violin Museum where Antonio de Lorenzi performs on a Stradivarius violin. Fausto Cacciatori, the museum's chief conservator, questions whether the instrument's sound will endure for centuries and notes the need for a 21st-century failsafe. Leonardo Tedeschi, a deejay who runs Audiozone, proposes recording Stradivari instruments and other master luthiers to create a global accessible database for future composers.
Peter Doig, Two Trees, 2017, is a large-scale landscape painting gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by George Economou in celebration of the Met’s 150th anniversary. The work measures about eight feet high and twelve feet wide and was first shown at Michael Werner Gallery in New York in 2017.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1960, is being offered by Sotheby’s on behalf of SFMOMA to benefit the institution’s Acquisitions Fund. The work, one of 19 completed by Rothko in 1960, comes after the Seagram Murals and Rothko’s 1958 Venice Biennale representation, and is connected to Peggy Guggenheim. The painting is estimated at $35–50 million and will travel to London, Taipei, and Hong Kong before returning to New York for exhibition and auction.
Forbes reports that Phillips achieves a new sales record of $916.5 million, led by Pablo Picasso’s Sleeping Nude of Muse. The article highlights Phillips’ record performance and Picasso as the centerpiece of the sale.
Urs Mattenberger reports that the Festival Strings Lucerne will lease another Stradivari violin, the Sellière, associated with Wolfgang Schneiderhan. The article notes the Stradivari instruments and related Amati and Guarneri violins in the collection of Stiftung Habisreutinger in Gersau, and explains the historical connection to the ensemble and its founders Rudolf Baumgartner and Schneiderhan.
The article reports that a 340-year-old Stradivarius violin, made by Antonio Stradivari before 1680 and described as in exceptionally good condition, was presented to the press in Lucerne and is now exclusively available to the Lucerne-based orchestra Festival Strings, following its purchase by the Monika Widmer Foundation. The instrument, previously part of Theodor Hämmerle’s collection, will be showcased in concerts in Vienna on March 5 and at the KKL in Lucerne on March 7.
Lucian Freud two early portraits, Portrait of Lady Scott (1952-54) and Portrait of Hermione Scott (1960), were accepted in lieu of tax and allocated to Lakeland Arts Trust for Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal. The works mark Freud’s stylistic development over a 6-8 year period and reflect a rare public collection in UK institutions.
The summary should name artists or makers, instruments, and amount. From the page: the article discusses a rare Stradivarius violin (Antonio Stradivari) listed on Yahoo Auctions for 880,000,000 JPY, later canceled. It references the maker Antonio Stradivari and the instrument described as a 1692 Stradivarius, with the seller in Aichi prefecture, and an appraisal by Peter Biddulph.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra has acquired its fourth Golden Age string instrument, a 1590 violin by Antonio and Hieronymus Amati. The purchase was enabled by AU$1 million from Media Super and the instrument will be played by ACO violinist Ike See.
Kehinde Wiley and a 17th century Golden Age still life are new acquisitions for the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, forming centerpieces of a reinstallation titled From the Golden Age to the Moving Image: The Changing Face of the Permanent Collection. The acquisitions mark Wiley's presence in the museum's permanent collection, following his high-profile career including the presidential portrait of Barack Obama completed in 2018.
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun’s Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan (1788) is highlighted in a Sotheby’s Masters Week sale report, noting the work sold for $7.2 million and set a new world auction record for any female artist of the pre-modern era. The post references the Master Paintings Evening Sale N10007 and the broader Masters Week results including Rubens drawings and the Old Master Drawings Sale totals.
Matthew Smith reports that Natsuko Yoshimoto, concertmaster of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, has been granted custodianship of the 266-year-old violin known as The Adelaide, valued at US$1 million. The instrument was crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in Milan between 1753–57 and is held in trust by Ukaria.
Zao Wou-Ki's untitled 1958 oil painting planned for Sotheby’s Hong Kong evening sale is deaccessioned by the Guggenheim Museum; the work’s estimate is HK$60m–HK$80m ($7.7m–$10m). The article notes rising demand for Zao Wou-Ki’s work and references notable past auction results, including the artist’s painting 23.05.64 and the triptych Juin-Octobre 1985.