The last sale of Old Masters recently held in Amsterdam by Christie's was a huge satisfaction for both auctioneer and sellers and a clear sign that the Art market is not going down the drain as fast as some misinformed media have already reported.
Tendencies are definitely on the upside and sellers were extremely happy by the resilience of the market. Amsterdam Christie's was offering on the 10th of November 2008 a set of 67 Old Masters' paintings made by followers, attributed or circles and in most cases by Secundary Old Masters themselves : fortunately for the sellers, not one single of the pictures on offer went below the estimate.
The excess went up as much as 25% in most cases and as 250% in some others : for instance the highest price was reached by an oil on panel (52.4 x 84.1 cm.) made by Flemish master Pieter Claesz. (c. 1597-1660 Haarlem) representing some quinces, peaches, a sliced melon on a silver plate, a bread roll, a leg of ham on a pewter plate, a knife, a 'Roemer' of white wine, a stoneware jug and a basket of fruit, all on a table signed with monogram and dated 'A° Pc 1651' (picture). It was estimated between $ 90,000 and $ 128,000 and it reached $ 324,000. (picture on the left).
The second highest price was reached by a Study of three young women by the studio of Sir Peter Paul Rubens that went for $ 121,000 vs. an estimate mimimum of $ 100,000. A beautiful oil on copper representing a gothic church interior with elegantly dressed figures signed and dated Henrick van Steenwijk 1578 that was estimated between 19,000 adn 25,000 dollars went for $ 47,399.An oil on canvas (picture on the right) by Jan Fyt (Antwerp 1611-1661) representing mixed grapes, cherries and plums by a cauldron with figs, an apple, a partridge and four quails nearby that was estimated $64,052 - $89,673 went for $93,516 (buyer's premium included). This picture was confiscated by the Nazis during the War in 1941 and was sold to Dr. Hans Posse, ex Director of the Dresden Art Gallery, appointed Director of the Special Mission Linz by Hitler himself, for the planned Führer Museum in Linz (Austria) that was never constructed.
One of the most expensive pictures in the world, l'Homme à la hache (The man with an axe), was painted in 1891 as an oil on canvas in the Pacific island of Moorea (Tahiti) by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).
Gauguin's arrival in Tahiti, after a passage of 69 days, was not especially memorable. His ship dropped anchor in the port of Papeete during the dead of night, as per normal practice, to take advantage of the high tide. Stories in the local press had anticipated Gauguin's coming, for the artist carried a commission from the French government to paint the island and its people.A young naval lieutenant named Jénot helped him get settled in town. The famous painter's presence quickly raised eyebrows--because of his longish hair, he was called taata-vahine ("man-woman"). Gauguin returned to France in August 1893, with only four francs in his pocket. He rented a room in Paris, and made use of a studio in the same building that the painter Alphonse Mucha had lent him. Gauguin convinced the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to mount an exhibition of his new paintings. The show opened on 10 November, and consisted of 41 Tahitian paintings, plus some sculptures and three earlier Breton pictures, accounting for almost all of the work he had done in the South Seas and deemed important, including L'homme à la hache. Only eleven paintings were sold, and the show was not a financial success.
But in 2006, this picture got its revenge and reached new heights when it was sold for $ 40,33 million in New York City. This particular sale by Chrisite's set nine new auction records, including for Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Paul Gauguin. Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold for $87,936,000 (with premium), the third highest price for a painting at auction.
Pablo Picasso did not paint only chefs d'oeuvre. This mandoline on a table painted in 1922 is rather a boring picture (81.6 x 100.1 cm.) that will bring me to sleep rather than to ecstasy. It was in the property of the late Evelyn Annenberg Hall - a long-time Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art (NYC)- and a famous art collector herself. She had a weakness for the handsome Pablo of whom she acquired her first picture in 1940, an acquisition qualified of remarkable for the epoch. Mrs. Annenberg Hall passed away in 2005 at age 93 in her home in Manhattan, NYC. With her second husband, William Jaffe, a corporate lawyer, she assembled an outstanding private art collection that included European paintings, sculpture and antique furniture, Chinese porcelain, pre-Colombian artifacts and Renaissance drawings.
This Picasso's picture which was estimated by the autioneer between $3,500,000 - $4,500,000 barely reached 3,1 million includind buyer's premium. The present still-life was painted during the winter of 1922 in the apartment on the fashionable rue La Boétie that Picasso shared with his wife, Olga Khokhlova, and their infant son, Paulo. Like the guitar, the mandolin is a recurrent motif throughout Picasso's work of the 1910s and 1920s. It appears in one of his most important cubist portraits, Fanny Tellier, a painting that some asserted would change the course of cubism.Well this picture is not going to change the course of my life and has certainly not changed the course of the auction at which it was sold in November 2008.
Egon Schiele, 1890-1918, was a great Austrian artist, an a protégé of Gustav Klimt, and a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu epidemic that claimed more than 20,000,000 lives in Europe reached Vienna. His wife Edith, who was six months pregnant, succumbed to the disease on 28 October : he died only three days after her. During the three days between their deaths, Schiele drew a few sketches of Edith; these were his last works.The sketch on the right made in 1917 is a black Conté crayon on paper and represents his wife Edith laying on his side in a very suggestive position. Estimated before the sale between $150,000 and 200,000, the work went on auction at Christies NYC in November 2008 for $314,500 including buyer's premium. I personally think this picture is awful and I would never pay that amount of money to hang this horror on my walls. Désolé Egon !!
Having said that another crayon on paper, gouache, watercolor by Schiele (left picture) was sold on the 6th of November 2008 for $ 1,594,500. It has been estimated before the sale between $700,000 and 1,000,000. Collectors know the price of the artist but still I have difficulty to understand how in such a period of economic difficulties such prices can be reached without being drawn to the floor one of those days.
I love Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) who was a great Austrian painter, the lover of the wife of Walter Gropius, boss of the Bauhaus, and a degenerate painter according to the Nazis.
But I usually prefer his full of colour canvasses on oil although it seems that a lot of people love OK for no reason except that he appears to be a sound investment.
However do not talk to me about art but about money when I learn that this sketch of Frau Stehender signed with initials 'OK' - watercolor and pencil - on buff paper, 17¾ x 12½ in., executed in 1907 was sold today 7 of November at Christie's NYC for $ 74,500.
It has been estimated prior to the sale between 40,000 and 60,000 dollars. Obviously the economic crisis we hear so much about has not yet reached the pockets of the wealthy collectors, or maybe they reached for safety before a general collapse of assets.
There are moments where I seriously wonder whether Hitler was not right to deem that sort of painting "entarte". Anyway the most entarte must be the people who are snobish enough to pay 74500 dollars for this obscenity. Hung that on the wall of your dining-room and none of your guests is any longer hungry. But don't tell them you paid 75 grants for it they would laugh their ass on the floor for good.
