Francis Bacon’s Study of Red Pope 1962. 2nd Version 1971 (1971) did not sell at Christie’s postwar and contemporary art sale in London, with an on-request estimate of £60 million to £80 million. The lot failed to find a buyer, unlike another Bacon work, Head with Raised Arm (1955), which sold for £11.5 million. The sale overall brought £99.5 million with an 83 percent sell-through rate.
The article discusses Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, a rare work believed to be one of only about 20 Leonardo paintings, going to Christie’s Evening Sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art in November 2017 with an estimate around $100 million. It covers provenance including royal ownership and a history of misattribution, as well as the painting’s rediscovery in 2005 and scholarly debates about authorship.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (c.1500) is added to Christie’s New York evening sale of postwar and contemporary art on November 15, 2017. The article quotes experts Loic Gouzer and Alan Wintermute discussing the painting’s rediscovery, provenance from King Charles I, and its rarity as a work of Leonardo that is in private hands.
The article discusses Christie's upcoming sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi with an estimated value of $100 million, alongside Andy Warhol’s Last Supper panel with an estimated $50 million. The painting is consigned by Dmitry Rybolovlev and is described as one of fewer than 20 known works by Leonardo, dating from around 1500 and last in private hands.
The US seized and returned 95 artworks valued in the tens of millions of dollars that belonged to Edemar Cid Ferreira, founder and former president of Banco Santos. Ferreira was convicted of money laundering and crimes against the financial system in 2006 and is appealing a 21-year sentence. The collection included works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Francis Picabia, Henry Moore, and Anish Kapoor, and was smuggled out of Brazil between 2004 and 2005.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Red Skull (1982) sold for $21.5 million at Christie’s contemporary evening sale in London. The anonymous consignor donated the proceeds after taxes to KIPP New Jersey, to fund expansion of charter schools in Newark, Camden, and Miami, with four to ten new KIPP schools planned.
Pierre Martin-Vivier discusses Alberto Giacometti’s Grande femme II, the artist’s largest sculpture, which sold for a record €25 million at Christie’s Paris Avant-Garde sale on 19 October 2017.
Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, the last painting by the artist in private hands, was expected to fetch US$100 million at Christie’s in New York. The work, rediscovered in 2005 and now part of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art sale, later sold for US$450.3 million, setting a new auction record.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is set to receive a donation totaling 113 Dutch and Flemish works by 76 artists from Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo and Susan and Matthew Weatherbie, establishing a dedicated Netherlandish art center at MFA and a research library. The gift includes works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jan Brueghel the Elder, and will significantly expand MFA’s Dutch and Flemish holdings. An exhibition of 42 pledged works is currently on view through January 18.
Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, one of fewer than 20 known da Vinci paintings, is slated for a Christie’s New York auction on Nov. 15; Dmitry Rybolovlev previously owned it after buying in 2013 for $127.5 million, with the sale potentially setting an auction record for an old master.
The Matisse family won a legal battle against Paris dealer Jérôme Le Blay over two Matisse cut-outs, worth about $4.5 million, withdrawn from a Sotheby’s sale in New York in May 2008. The Versailles court of appeal ordered restitution to Pierre Matisse’s descendants, and highlighted alleged misappropriation and attempts to conceal origins by Le Blay and Rozven.
The article discusses a doodle of the Empire State Building by Donald Trump that sold for $16,000 at Julien’s Auctions. It also highlights other art-market items and notable stories such as Matisse cutouts case and various industry updates.
Sotheby’s announced another group of Mellon family paintings after its $200 million 2014 dispersal, led by Monet’s Champ d’iris à Giverny at $3–5 million and works by Pissarro, de Staël and Homer.
Old Master dealer Otto Naumann prepared paintings and sculpture from nearly his entire inventory for Sotheby’s, including works by Baglione, Dolci, van der Helst, Mancini and Sorolla, with published estimates reaching $600,000.
Christie’s prepared more than 200 modern, post-war and contemporary works assembled by Jean-François and Marie-Aline Prat for Paris sales, including Basquiat, Polke, Stella, Klein and Dubuffet.
Ninety works on paper from Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Carl Spielvogel were positioned across Sotheby’s November Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary sales, led by a Rothko estimated at $5–7 million.