Auctions and Appraisals Archives
The Valmadonna Trust Library
Join Sotheby's experts and Jack Lunzer, custodian of the Valmadonna Trust Library, for an intimate tour of this fabled collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts.
Highly recommended.
More
- The Valmadonna Trust Library - Wikipedia
- Valmadonna photos and comments
- The Valmadonna Trust Library at Sotheby’s
- The Valmadonna Trust Library - photos from the NYT
Furniture Fit for Royalty, Nov. 15-19, 2008, at Christie's
Something free to do in Manhattan, in the Rockefeller Centre area before the Thanksgiving week-end ... free, no tickets required .... beautifully displayed objects of art, most polite and helpfull stuff ... nice tiolets ...
Furniture Fit for Royalty: Important European Furniture, Ceramics, and Carpets, at Christie's, 10 am - 5 pm, November 15-19, 2008
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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A great exhibition of Impressionist and Modern paintings at Sotheby's
Something nice to do in New York on the first week-end in November ... walk to 72nd Street and York Avenue, free and no tickets required.
A great exhibition of Impressionist and Modern paintings, beautifully displayed, and nice toilets. The space makes me feel that I am in some SOHO or Chelsea art gallery but I am in the Upper East Side
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, Sotheby's, 10 am - 5 pm, October 29 - November 2, 2008, Sotheby's New York, 1334 York Avenue, at 72nd Street, 212-606-7000
There is a branch of Dean and DeLuca on the 10th floor with a lovely out-door terrace to enjoy a cup of coffee ... or Matsu Sushi, 411 East 70th Street, New York, 212-744-5454. ....the best values are at lunch from their "lunch specials" from 11am - 4 pm ... the sushi rice at Matsu Sushi is a stand-out ... with the correct amount of rice wine blended into the sushi rice to give a nice sour and sweet taste, a very tasty sushi. Also they do not serve a huge piece of fish, just a nice size piece ... and at the right temperature, i.e., luke warm and not ice cold ... very close to Sotheby's, the Tri-Institutional Friday Noon concerts at Rockefeller University and the numerous hospitals in that area...
Speaking about lunch in this neighborhood, I must recommend the ILLY cafe at the Food Emporium on 69th Street & Third Avenue, very good Italian ILLY coffee, great sandwiches for $6.99, especially the mozzarella and prosciutto, numerous hot soups and $5.99 salad buffet ... moreover, a whole roasted D'Artagnan chicken to go for $10.99, etc...
Why auction houses like to hire museum people
Which brings us to the main reason that auction houses find museum people so attractive: They know where the bodies are buried. In the course of their work they learn who has what important works of art because that's how they organize their exhibitions. They spend hundreds of hours tracking down objects--some famous, some obscure--and visiting their owners in hopes of borrowing them. In the course of such visits, they might well come upon other works of art that the collector owns.
Auction houses rely on a steady stream of loot to stay in business, so they badly need this insider information. It's especially valuable given the surprisingly large number of A-list works of art still in private hands. A collector is far more likely to be persuaded to part with his treasures by an ex-museum director with whom he probably already has a relationship than by a cold-calling "expert" from Sotheby's or Christie's.
This trend, although a rainmaking boon for the auction houses, might in the long run wind up making life more difficult for museums. The loan exhibition--the big draw for most art museums--is already hard to bring off, given increasing red tape, high insurance costs and fears of terrorism. And it may become a near-impossible task if collectors start to think that the museum director pleading with them to lend a masterpiece today will be an auctioneer badgering them to sell it tomorrow.
"Museums Meet Auction Houses: The wall between art-world realms is going, going . . ." by Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2007
The Art Market will be bullish until 2008
The Art Market will be bullish until 2008
On consecutive evenings last week auction records tumbled as Christie's and then Sotheby's hosted their summer sales of Contemporary Art.
Art Market Review, Contemporary Art, Sotheby's, June 2007
Anticipated in the press as the most successful sales to take place in London, June's Impressionist and Modern Art auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's spectacularly lived up to their billing. While New York remains the centre of the market--as evidenced by the extraordinary totals achieved there last May--London is fast gaining on its New World rival and the buoyancy of the market has meant collectors are offering for sale works of outstanding quality by artists such as Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Rodin and Picasso.
Art Market Review, Impressionist and Modern Art, Sotheby's, June 2007
Post by Peter
Provenance
After retiring from truck driving in 1987, Teri Horton devoted much of her time to bargain hunting around the Los Angeles area. Sometimes the bargains were discovered on Salvation Army shelves and sometimes, she willingly admits, at the bottom of Dumpsters.
Even the most stubborn deal scrounger probably would have been satisfied with the rate of return recently offered to her for a curiosity she snagged for $5 in a San Bernardino thrift shop in the early 1990s. A buyer, said to be from Saudi Arabia, was willing to pay $9 million for it, just under an 180 million percent increase on her original investment. Ms. Horton, a sandpaper-voiced woman with a hard-shell perm who lives in a mobile home in Costa Mesa and depends on her Social Security checks, turned him down without a second thought.
Ms. Horton’s find is not exactly the kind that gets pulled from a steamer trunk on the “Antiques Roadshow.” It is a dinner-table-size painting, crosshatched in the unmistakable drippy, streaky, swirly style that made Jackson Pollock one of the most famous artists of the last century. Ms. Horton had never heard of Pollock before buying the painting, but when an art teacher saw it and told her that it might be his work (and that it could fetch untold millions if it were), she launched herself on a single-minded post-retirement career — enlisting, along the way, a forensic expert and a once-powerful art dealer — to have her painting acknowledged as authentic by scholars and the art market.
"Could Be a Pollock; Must Be a Yarn," by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, November 9, 2006
Where is the provenance???
"Provenance" is a list of the previous owners of a work of art, tracing it from its present location and owner back to the hand of the artist. Provenance has many uses: It can help to determine the authenticity of a work, to establish the historical importance of a work by suggesting other artists who might have seen and been influenced by it, and to determine the legitimacy of current ownership.
Provenance Research, Harvard University Art Museums
More
- What is provenance research? - Association of Art Museum Directors
- Provenance Resources Online - The Museum of Modern Art
- Provenance Research - The Getty
- Metropolitan Museum's Provenance Research Project
- Provenance Research - Princeton University Art Museum
- Museum Provenance Research - Google
- Nazi Era Provenance - American Association of Museums
What is it worth? - The Appraisal Business
The last few lines of an article in the NYT explains very well the appraisal business, which tries to answer the question, "What is it worth?" ...
For Michael Ochs, sharing his collection of rock 'n' roll photographs with the occasional stranger is his passion, but sharing it with millions is his life. Over the last 30 years the Michael Ochs Archives has grown to become the premier source of musician photography in the world, every day licensing shots of hayseeds and headbangers to illustrate books (about half of recent rock 'n' roll books have included photos from the collection), dress up documentaries (like Martin Scorsese's recent PBS feature on Bob Dylan) and otherwise adorn television programs and feature films (in "Ray," session sets were based on images from the Ochs Archives).
...
With tips from industry friends, he would save troves of photographs from labels going under, occasionally rushing to empty file cabinets before the wrecking balls arrived. (Once, when he arrived too late, he researched which garbage trucks went to which city dump.) As Mr. Ochs became more prominent in the field, music insiders made sure extra material would be sent his way. Similarly, several retired and aging photographers, rather than throwing the material out, turned to Mr. Ochs to give their work a proper, permanent home.
"They Had Faces Then: An Archive Keeps Stars Ever Young," by Alan Schwarz, The New York Times, May 28, 2006
Post by Peter
Impressionist & Modern Art - Christie's
Exhibition of Impressionist paintings at Christie's, Rockefeller Centre, New York, tomorrow, 10:00 am - 12 noon ... worth a detour ...
Exhibition:
- Monday, May 1, 2006, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
- Tuesday, May 2, 2006, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Sale, No. 1655, May 2, 2006, 7:00 pm
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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Photographs - at Christie's
Exhibition of photographs at Christie's, Rockefeller Centre, New York, this week-end ... worth a detour ...
Photographs by Ansel Adams, Helmut Newton, Edward Curtis, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Beard, Irving Penn, Marion Post Wolcott, and others ...
- Sale 1625, Lot 208, Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990), Belle Glade, Florida, 1939
- Sale 1625, Lot 206, Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), Fish Weir Across Trinity River, c. 1923
- Sale 1625, Lot 30, Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), 3 photogravures from Camera Work, Number 36, 1911
- Sale 1625, Lot 17, Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), Sioux Warrior, 1904
- Sale 1625, Lot 3, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), Hyères, 1932
- Sale 1625, Lot 6, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), Sale of Gold in the Last Days of Kuomintang, Shanghai, China, 1949
Exhibition:
- Sunday, February 12, 2006, 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Monday, February 13, 2006, 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Sale, No. 1625, February 14, 2006, 10:00 am & 2:00 pm
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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Important Old Master Paintings - at Sotheby's
Important Old Master Paintings, Auction Sale N08162, January 26-27, 2006, New York
- Lot 10, "Study Of An Elderly Woman In A White Cap," by Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn, Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam, oil on panel, 21 by 14 3/4 in. ; 53.3 by 37.5 cm.
- Lot 15, "A Bearded Old Man," by Gerrit Dou, Leiden 1613 - 1675, signed middle right GDOV (GD in monogram), oil on panel, 7 by 5 in.; 17.8 by 12.7 cm.
- Lot 54, "Still Life With Wild Strawberries In A Late Ming Blue And White Bowl," oil on panel, by Du Mélezet, Active Mid-Seventeenth Century, 13 1/2 by 22 in.; 39.5 by 56 cm.
- Lot 72, "Flowers In A Terracotta Vase On A Marble Ledge," signed lower right Jan Van Húysúm / fecit, oil on mahogany panel, by Jan Van Huysum, Amsterdam 1682 - 1749, 31 1/2 by 24 in.; 80 by 61 cm.
- Lot 74, An Important Italian Terracotta Relief Of The Madonna And Child, By Donato Di Niccolo Di Betto Bardi, Called Donatello (1386-1466), Formerly Belonging To The Borromeo Family And In The Church Of San Giovanni Battista In Lissaro Di Mestrino, Circa 1450, Padua, modeled in half-length, the Child supported in her arms and on her right hip, His loose swaddling cloth partially covering His torso, the Virgin’s head inclined downward to the left; as He touches His cheek to hers, they gaze lovingly at one another, His left arm pulls at her neck and the right hand gently tugs on her bodice, the Madonna’s thin veil falls about her neck and shoulders revealing parts of her body beneath it, remainders of original polychromy and gilding. height 32½in; width 20½in; 81.2cm; 50.8cm
Sotheby's New York, 1334 York Avenue, at 72nd Street, 212-606-7000
Buyer beware ... the Art Market is hot and crazy
Buyer beware ... the Art Market is hot and crazy ... Happy Winter and Good Tidings ...
Artprice.com, a French company that tracks world auction results, figures overall prices in New York and London topped their mid-1990 peak for the first time this year -- by 33% and 19%, respectively. Meanwhile, Chinese art often soared to four or five times pre-auction estimates at recent Sotheby's and Christie's Hong Kong sales. Indian and Russian works are seeing similar gains.
"The Art Of Buying Art: Today's market looks awfully inflated. Tread carefully," Business Week, December 26, 2005
More
- "Why Collectors Are Crazy For Chinese Art: It's not only dynastic porcelain vases. Art mavens are buying contemporary works as well," Business Week, December 27, 2004
- "Time to sell in a hot market," by Souren Melikian, International Herald Tribune, February 7, 2004
- "Positively Sizzling," by Missy Sullivan, Forbes, December 26, 2005
- "Auction packed," by Murray Whyte, The Toronto Starr, December 17, 2005
- "Deaccession roulette," by Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion, December 2005
- "'Art Funds' Starved for Investors" - WSJ, A Guy In New York, August 22, 2005
Post by Peter
Put your money where your mouth is
Long Bets is a web site where you can bet money on your own or others predictions. All winnings are donated to a charity of the winner's choice. This page describes how to make a bet.
Here are some of the predictions on Long Bets.
- By 2007, the U.S. Government will intervene to prevent at least one of the Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs)/Regional Bell Operating Companines (RBOCs) (e.g. Verizon, SBC, Bell South, and EXCEPTING Qwest) from filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
- By 2100 a world government will be in place and in control of: business law, environmental law, and weapons of mass destruction.
- By the year 2020 solar electricity will be as cheap or cheaper than that produced by fossil fuels.
Impressionist Art and Good Chinese Food ... This Weekend
This week-end at Rockefeller Plaza, free to the public ... a very great show of Impressionist paintings from the Masters ... Saturday, October 29, 2005, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm and Sunday, October 30, 2005, 1:00 - 5:00 pm ... next door to Wu-Liang-Ye ... yummy dan-dan mein, ma-po tofu, etc.
"Impressionist & Modern Art - at Christie's," A Guy In New York, October 19, 2005
Wu Liang Ye, 215 East 86th Street, 212-534-6032
Impressionist & Modern Art - at Christie's
Calling all art lovers ... Clear your calender for this wonderful exhibition! ... "Impressionist & Modern Art (Evening Sale)" auction, November 1, 2005, 7:00 pm ... open for viewing October 28-November 1, 2005 ... at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza location ...
- Sale 1570, Lot 11, Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Les marguerites, 1919
- Sale 1570, Lot 16, Claude Monet (1840-1926), Route à Louveciennes, effet de neige
- Sale 1570, Lot 7, Edgar Degas (1834-1917), La danse espagnole
- Sale 1570, Lot 3, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), L'éternel printemps, premier état, taille originale, variante
- Sale 1570, Lot 22, Claude Monet (1840-1926), Nymphéas
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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Property from a Sutton Square Residence - at Christie's
Here are some of the items from the "Property from a Sutton Square Residence" auction, October 18, 2005, 10:00 am ... open for viewing October 13-17, 2005 ... at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza location ...
- Sale 1667, Lot 40, "A Chinese Export Porcelain Armorial Service," Qianlong, circa 1795
- Sale 1667, Lot 147, "Lions fleeing a Veldt fire," Wilhelm Friedrich Kuhnert (German, 1865-1926), Oil on unlined canvas
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
Property from the Estate of Laurance S. Rockefeller - from Sotheby's
Property from the Estate of Laurance S. Rockefeller, Auction Sale N08152, October 11-12, 2005, New York
Exhibition starts Wednesday, Ocober 5, 2005.
Sotheby's New York, 1334 York Avenue, at 72nd Street, 212-606-7000
Fine Musical Instruments at Christie's
Fine Musical Instruments auction, October 14, 2005, at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza location ...
- Sale 1562, Lot 36, Lyon and Healy, A Forty-six string, Double Action Harp, Style 22, Chicago, 1915
- Sale 1562, Lot 26, Gibson Incorporated, A Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Les Paul Model, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1959
- Sale 1562, Lot 3, Gibson Incorporated, An Arch-Top Electric Guitar, Style L-5P, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1940
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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Old Master Paintings - at Christie's
Here are some paintings from the "Old Master Paintings" auction, September 30, 2005, 10:00 am ... open for viewing September 24 through September 29, 2005 ... at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza location ...
- Sale Number 1556, Lot Number 2, "The collector of tithes," Studio of Pieter Brueghel II (Antwerp 1589-1638/9)
- Sale Number 1556, Lot Number 89, "A bozetto for a ceiling: Merit crowned by Nobility," Carlo Innocenzo Carlone (Scaria 1686-1775 Como)
- Sale Number 1556, Lot Number 98, "A storm at sea," Pieter Mulier the Younger, Cavaliere Pietro Tempesta (Haarlem 1637-1701 Milan)
- Sale Number 1556, Lot Number 24, "The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine," Biagio dalle Lame, called Biagio Pupini (born in Bologna, active c. 1511-1551)
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
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The Work of Al Hirschfeld - Auction, September 22, 2005
Swann Galleries is having an auction of Al Hirschfeld drawings ... exhibition starting tomorrow, September 17, 2005 ...
The September 22 auction of The Work of Al Hirschfeld offers some 200 lots. Among the approximately 25 original drawings are portraits of Bob Hope, George Burns, Pearl Bailey, Alistair Cooke, Paul Muni, and Henry Fonda. There are also drawings for the New York Times of Desperate Hours, a 1955 play that featured a young Paul Newman; Awake & Sing, which starred John Garfield; and prints of more contemporary subjects such as the cast of Seinfeld.
Date: September 22, 2005, 2:30 pm
Exhibition: Saturday, September 17, 10-4; Monday, September 19 through Wednesday, September 21, 10-6; and Thursday, September 22, 10-noon
104 East 25th Street, between Park Avenue South and Lexington Avenue, 212-254-4710
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Paintings at Christie's ... Guy Wiggins
Here are some paintings we like by Guy Carleton Wiggins at the Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture auction, September 15, 2005, at Christie's Rockefeller Plaza location ...
The grandson of the painter is a friend of ours ...
Christie's, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-636-2000
Please note that links to auction items usually stop working within 30 days after the auction concludes ...
Upcoming Sotheby's sales
Some interesting upcoming sales at Sotheby's ...
- American Art, September 16, 2005, 10:15 am, 1334 York Avenue at 72nd Street, New York, New York
Exhibiton: Wednesday, September 14, 2005, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, Thursday, September 15, 2005, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
See LOT 56, WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE, 1849-1916, PORTRAIT OF LOUIS PRANG
LOT 91, GUY WIGGINS, 1883-1962, HARBOR, GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
- Royal House of Hanover, Wednesday, October 5 - Saturday, October 15, 2005, 10:00 am and 2:30 pm daily, no auction session on Sunday, October 9, 2005
Exhibition: Schloss Marienburg, Nordstemmen, Germany, Friday, September 30 - Monday, October 3, 2005, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm daily
"'Art Funds' Starved for Investors" - WSJ
Today's Wall Street Journal had an article discussing funds set up to invest in art ... the lede: "Art prices are dazzling collectors these days, but the market for investment funds that buy and sell art is looking gloomier than El Greco's 'View of Toledo.'" ... "'Art Funds' Starved for Investors," by Marcus Baram, page C1, August 22, 2005 (subscription required) ... according to the article, the only fund performing well is the Fine Art Fund, based in London ... whose CEO is a former executive of Christie's, Philip Hoffman ...
We wrote about Art as an Investment in July
Christie's summer House Sale
Christies is having The House Sale August 9-10, 2005 ... no reserve (means that there is no minimum bid price, i.e., you can find bargains if there are no other bidders) ... located at 49th Street and Rockefeller Centre (btwn 5th Ave. and Avenue of the Americas/6th Ave.) ... no charge for looking and browsing ... a very wonderful way to spend some time browsing in a very civilised enviroment ...
Wu Liang Ye is around the corner on 48th Street for lunch or dinner (36 West 48th) ... Le Maison du Chocolat is across the street (30 Rockefeller Center) ...
Wu Liang Ye
Subway interactive map | schedules | HopStop: B, D, F, V train to Rockefeller Center, 6 train to 51st and Lexington, 1 or 9 train to 50th and Broadway
Art as an investment
I have heard about efforts to index the art market for old masters ... and create financial instruments for portfolio diversifying ... the huge problem is the high transaction cost and not a very liquid instrument to trade transparently ... too many fakes to worry about, too ... A posibility in this context, create a portfolio of Modern and Contemporary prints, multiples, posters, lithographs, etc. ...
Also see:
- "Art Investment Companies Begin to Make Purchases," by Daniel Grant in Maine Antique Digest (March, 2005)
- "Collectible art is among alternatives to traditional financial instruments," by Tom Walker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 3, 2005
- "Art of Art Investment!" on GreekShares.com
