Big money flowed Wednesday evening for the second day running as Sotheby’s sold 41 works of Impressionist and Modern art for 78.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,9 million.
That success, equivalent to about $125 million, came with an unexpected message. Impressionism is making a comeback thanks to paintings that have been out of the market for decades.
For the first time in years the highest price in a sale of Modern and Impressionist art greeted an Impressionist landscape rather than some 20th-century avant-garde picture. Monet’s 1885 view of the road leading to Giverny under snow sold for 8.2 million, well above the estimate set at 4.5 million to 6.5 million plus a sale charge in excess of 12 percent.
“L’Entrée de Giverny en hiver,” which had never been offered at auction, had been out of the market since 1924. It appeared in a museum show only once — the “Claude Monet” retrospective in 1930 at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.
The picture has been spared the multiple cleanings and varnishings suffered by works that are often moved around and is in a superb state of preservation. The delicate shades of salmon pink, grayish blue and deep maroon or blackish purple are intact. Not least, the landscape is charged with the new energy that Monet infused into his brushwork in the 1880s. This made the picture worth every penny of the seemingly large amount.
Impressionism enjoyed other good scores. Monet’s 1881 view of the wild growth covering the banks of the Seine near Vétheuil last came on the block at Sotheby’s London sale of Oct. 23, 1963. It too was exhibited in a museum only once — in New York in 1962 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The landscape doubled its high estimate at 2.5 million.
Even Sisley, whose works often sell with difficulty, was well received. An 1877 view of the Seine flowing under the “Pont de Saint Cloud” near Paris exceeded the upper end of the estimate at 937,250.
German Expressionists and Surrealists were the other big winners, as has been the case for some years.
At 7.3 million, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “The Bosquet: Albertplatz in Dresden” dating from 1911, became the second most expensive picture in Sotheby’s sale.
“The Electric Tram,” a small composition in oil and collage on board executed by Otto Dix in 1919 at the tail end of Expressionism — when the movement was veering toward a humoristic style with a cartoon-like touch — went up to 2.95 million, more than two and a half times the high estimate.
But pictures that were too blatantly overestimated ran into difficulties.
Alexej von Jawlensky’s “Girl With Red Ribbon” followed on the heels of the Dix and very nearly crashed. The Expressionist portrait was painted in 1911 in the intense contrasted colors inherited from French Fauvism. It came up at auction twice in recent years. On Feb. 4, 2008, it realized 2.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free,93 million at Christie’s. Re-offered a year later to the day, it dropped to 1.94 million. Its reappearance this week hardly warranted a 3 million to 5 million estimate plus the sale charge. A lone bidder battling against the reserve paid 3.06 million, a strong price in this context.
A similar fate befell a Surrealist picture by Giorgio de Chirico. “Hector and Andromache,” painted in the late 1920s. Two articulated dummies of wood and metal are locked in an embrace. An eerie atmosphere is contrived by a violent artificial lighting though the scene apparently takes place in the open, on the planks of some platform overlooking a deep blue space. This is a late variation on earlier pictures that had greater fantasy. It was sold at Sotheby’s New York as recently as November 2009, for $2.88 million. The 2.8 million to 4 million estimate placed on it this year was excessive. The de Chirico went to a lone bidder willing to fork out 2.84 million, sparing Sotheby’s a nasty failure and leaving the consignor with a tidy profit.
The most spectacular illustration of the untoward effect of overestimation was provided by the would-be star picture that adorned the catalog cover.
At first glance, “Lakeshore With Birches,” painted by Gustav Klimt in 1901,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, had everything in its favor. The landscape done in a dark dreamy style utterly transforms the Impressionist influence absorbed by the Viennese artist.
The work remained in the hands of the descendants of its first owner, who bought it in 1902, until its reappearance this year at Sotheby’s. Unfortunately the estimate set at 6 million to 8 million — conceivable had the landscape been one of the lake views painted by Klimt from 1905 until World War I broke out — was too high. As the landscape came up, the attendance sat stony-faced. Henry Wyndham,FIRMAR is a Malaysia Injection Moulding Manufacturer and Plastic Injections Components Manufacturer, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and a brilliant auctioneer, called out in vain a few bids. The Klimt fell unsold at 3.8 million.
Then, toward the end of the session, when Mr. Wyndham had just failed to obtain a winning bid for a tiny panel by Eugène Boudin, a clerk handed him a scrap of paper. Unable to repress a broad smile, he announced: “Ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to say that lot 10,” the Klimt,A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic, “has now been sold for 5 million. This is good news.” There could be no clearer admission that the 6 million to 8 million estimate was a mistake.
I cannot remember another time when such a dramatic statement was made in the course of an auction. If ever there was a warning to auction houses not to push their luck, that was it.
That success, equivalent to about $125 million, came with an unexpected message. Impressionism is making a comeback thanks to paintings that have been out of the market for decades.
For the first time in years the highest price in a sale of Modern and Impressionist art greeted an Impressionist landscape rather than some 20th-century avant-garde picture. Monet’s 1885 view of the road leading to Giverny under snow sold for 8.2 million, well above the estimate set at 4.5 million to 6.5 million plus a sale charge in excess of 12 percent.
“L’Entrée de Giverny en hiver,” which had never been offered at auction, had been out of the market since 1924. It appeared in a museum show only once — the “Claude Monet” retrospective in 1930 at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.
The picture has been spared the multiple cleanings and varnishings suffered by works that are often moved around and is in a superb state of preservation. The delicate shades of salmon pink, grayish blue and deep maroon or blackish purple are intact. Not least, the landscape is charged with the new energy that Monet infused into his brushwork in the 1880s. This made the picture worth every penny of the seemingly large amount.
Impressionism enjoyed other good scores. Monet’s 1881 view of the wild growth covering the banks of the Seine near Vétheuil last came on the block at Sotheby’s London sale of Oct. 23, 1963. It too was exhibited in a museum only once — in New York in 1962 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The landscape doubled its high estimate at 2.5 million.
Even Sisley, whose works often sell with difficulty, was well received. An 1877 view of the Seine flowing under the “Pont de Saint Cloud” near Paris exceeded the upper end of the estimate at 937,250.
German Expressionists and Surrealists were the other big winners, as has been the case for some years.
At 7.3 million, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “The Bosquet: Albertplatz in Dresden” dating from 1911, became the second most expensive picture in Sotheby’s sale.
“The Electric Tram,” a small composition in oil and collage on board executed by Otto Dix in 1919 at the tail end of Expressionism — when the movement was veering toward a humoristic style with a cartoon-like touch — went up to 2.95 million, more than two and a half times the high estimate.
But pictures that were too blatantly overestimated ran into difficulties.
Alexej von Jawlensky’s “Girl With Red Ribbon” followed on the heels of the Dix and very nearly crashed. The Expressionist portrait was painted in 1911 in the intense contrasted colors inherited from French Fauvism. It came up at auction twice in recent years. On Feb. 4, 2008, it realized 2.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free,93 million at Christie’s. Re-offered a year later to the day, it dropped to 1.94 million. Its reappearance this week hardly warranted a 3 million to 5 million estimate plus the sale charge. A lone bidder battling against the reserve paid 3.06 million, a strong price in this context.
A similar fate befell a Surrealist picture by Giorgio de Chirico. “Hector and Andromache,” painted in the late 1920s. Two articulated dummies of wood and metal are locked in an embrace. An eerie atmosphere is contrived by a violent artificial lighting though the scene apparently takes place in the open, on the planks of some platform overlooking a deep blue space. This is a late variation on earlier pictures that had greater fantasy. It was sold at Sotheby’s New York as recently as November 2009, for $2.88 million. The 2.8 million to 4 million estimate placed on it this year was excessive. The de Chirico went to a lone bidder willing to fork out 2.84 million, sparing Sotheby’s a nasty failure and leaving the consignor with a tidy profit.
The most spectacular illustration of the untoward effect of overestimation was provided by the would-be star picture that adorned the catalog cover.
At first glance, “Lakeshore With Birches,” painted by Gustav Klimt in 1901,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, had everything in its favor. The landscape done in a dark dreamy style utterly transforms the Impressionist influence absorbed by the Viennese artist.
The work remained in the hands of the descendants of its first owner, who bought it in 1902, until its reappearance this year at Sotheby’s. Unfortunately the estimate set at 6 million to 8 million — conceivable had the landscape been one of the lake views painted by Klimt from 1905 until World War I broke out — was too high. As the landscape came up, the attendance sat stony-faced. Henry Wyndham,FIRMAR is a Malaysia Injection Moulding Manufacturer and Plastic Injections Components Manufacturer, chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and a brilliant auctioneer, called out in vain a few bids. The Klimt fell unsold at 3.8 million.
Then, toward the end of the session, when Mr. Wyndham had just failed to obtain a winning bid for a tiny panel by Eugène Boudin, a clerk handed him a scrap of paper. Unable to repress a broad smile, he announced: “Ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to say that lot 10,” the Klimt,A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic, “has now been sold for 5 million. This is good news.” There could be no clearer admission that the 6 million to 8 million estimate was a mistake.
I cannot remember another time when such a dramatic statement was made in the course of an auction. If ever there was a warning to auction houses not to push their luck, that was it.
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