The article discusses the Miami Beach Convention Center hosting Art Basel events and featuring six permanent public artworks commissioned by the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places, created by Franz Ackermann, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ellen Harvey, Joseph Kosuth, Joep van Lieshout, and Sarah Morris. It cites a $7 million municipal percent-for-art contribution and notes the center's $615 million renovation and its museum-quality art within the venue and surrounding spaces.
Paul Gauguin's Te Bourao II (1897) sold for €9.5 million ($10.5 million) at Artcurial in Paris, nearly double its estimate. The work is from Gauguin's Tahitian period and is the first of that phase offered in France in over 20 years.
The Art Newspaper reports on Christie’s Old Master sale in London, noting Brexit-related jitters and a smaller 44-lot offering that included sculptures and drawings alongside paintings. The main highlights were two 15th-century predella panels by Giovanni di Paolo, restituted to the family of Harry Fuld, with Christie’s noting solid buyer interest and a 16% increase in value year over year.
Maurizio Cattelan's banana was sold in three editions before it was eaten, with Perrotin Gallery and NADA reporting sales during Art Basel Miami Beach. The article also notes the Rijksmuseum receiving 24 Mapplethorpe photographs as part of ongoing acquisitions.
Two Van Gogh pictures owned by Calisto Tanzi were sold in Milan on 29 October, with Pandolfini hosting Rediscovered Treasures: Impressionist and Modern Masterpieces from a Private Collection. The works trace to Tanzi, founder of Parmalat, whose fraud conviction sparked the recovery of a large art collection, including Pollard Willow, a Van Gogh watercolour from 1881.
The Klimt painting Portrait of a Lady, valued at $66 million, was stolen from a gallery in northern Italy more than 20 years ago and may have been found hidden in the external wall of the Ricci Oddi gallery in Piacenza. Italian authorities planned high-tech X-rays to verify authenticity after discovery.
Orazio Gentileschi’s The Finding of Moses (ca. early 1630s) has been purchased by the National Gallery in London for £19.5 million (about $25.5 million). The painting has been on loan to the museum since 2002, with fundraising culminating in the acquisition that was announced by the gallery, following prior efforts since 1995.
The National Gallery in London raised £19.5 million ($25.5 million) to purchase Orazio Gentileschi’s The Finding of Moses (early 1630s). The work was bought with a deal arranged with Sotheby’s London and Pyms Gallery and will remain on permanent display. The painting was previously purchased in 1995 by Graham Kirkham for £43,300.
The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi was purchased for the national collection with significant public donations; the painting will stay on free public display in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The work was acquired for £22m gross, with a net cost to the National Gallery of £19,471,340 via private treaty sale through Sotheby’s and Pyms Gallery, and is linked to Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
The article discusses the top ten auction results of 2019, led by Claude Monet's Meules (1890) sold at Sotheby’s New York for $110.7 million, and Jeff Koons’s Rabbit sold at Christie’s New York for $91 million, with a total worldwide auction turnover of $4.8 billion for Sotheby’s and a dominant New York focus. It notes trends such as New York surpassing London for high-value sales, a drop in large lots later in the year, persistent emphasis on male 20th-century masters, and the Christie’s/Sotheby’s duopoly.
The Paris appeals court affirmed a 2017 ruling that Jeff Koons’s 1988 sculpture Naked plagiarized a photograph by Jean-François Bauret. The decision requires Koons’s studio and the Centre Pompidou to pay €20,000 and Koons’s studio €4,000 to Bauret’s family, with the Centre Pompidou and Gagosian declining to comment.
Sotheby’s documents the market development behind Inaugural Auction Dedicated to Aboriginal Art at Sotheby's New York Achieves $2.8 Million. Its account reports that nEW YORK, 16 December 2019 – Sotheby’s Aboriginal Art auction, held in New York on 13 December 2019, achieved $2.8 million.
Sotheby’s documents the market development behind The Ribes Collection | Auction Results. Its account reports that on 11 and 12 December, Sotheby’s Paris will offer for sale a selection of historical pieces from the collection of the Count and Countess de Ribes.