Auction News Network

Teenaged Rembrandt Peale Painted Washington

Charles Wilson Peale, the famed painter of George Washington, took his 17-year old boy (named Rembrandt) along for a sitting with the Founding Father. The teenager painted to acclaim and went on to recreate portraits of Washington for decades. One of those, known as a “porthole” copy, will be offered by Heritage next month, with a high estimate of  $175,000.

Iwo Jima Monument To Sell

Iconic monuments don’t come on the market as a rule, but tomorrow is the exception. At a sale of World War II artifacts in New York, Bonhams will offer the original Iwo Jima Monument, as sculpted in Washington, D.C in June-September 1945. Felix de Weldon conceived the depiction of Marines raising the stars and stripes on Mount Suribaci, following a photograph by Joe Rosenthal. Last displayed on the hangar deck of the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum in New York, the statue comes with all sorts of related materials, including original pencil sketches for its design. To take home the 10,000 pound icon, expected to pay $1.2m-$1.8m. Plus shipping, of course.

Maritime Art At Bonhams

In the mid-19^th century, when sailing vessels ruled the seas, stormy voyages were a favorite theme of maritime artists. One of the most accomplished was James Edward Buttersworth, whose masterpiece may be his depiction, circa 1855, of the famous Clipper ship Flying Cloud emerging from a hurricane. When the painting comes up for auction later this week at Bonhams’ Maritime Paintings & Decorative Arts sale in New York, it’s expected to realize $200,000-$300,000.

Rare Colonial Cabinet Leads Americana Sale

Back in 2005, the Metropolitan Museum in New York held an exhibition of the work of John Townsend, one of the highest regarded Colonial cabinetmakers. Just a few blocks away, in the townhouse of a family that had owned it since around 1770 but no longer had any sense of its value or provenance, sat one of Townsend’s rarest pieces. It was a four-shell kneehole Chippendale bureau table, discovered a visit last fall by Christie’s John Hays. One of only seven examples known to exist, it’s expected to sell for $700,000 -$900,000 at Christie’s Americana sale later this month in New York.

Christie’s Luxury Week

Closing out its 2012 season, Christie’s will offer a Luxury Week series of sales, beginning today with an event in New York devoted to jewels, led by a 50.01 carat diamond ring by Graff, (est. $7m-$10m). In tomorrow’s sale, Christie’s will auction a collection of furniture, fine and decorative art from the estate of legendary director Billy Wilder, and in coming days, there will be sales, six in all, devoted to watches, wine, and 20^th century design.

Rare Norman Rockwell Appears At Auction

Norman Rockwell’s distinctive—and hugely popular—paintings appeared with great regularity in mid-century America as covers for the Saturday Evening Post. These days his large-scale canvases are seldom seen on the market. Most are held by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass, although filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are also known to have considerable collections. A rare example will come to the block this weekend, when Chicago-based Susanin Auctions will offer “Willie Gillis, Package From Home.”  The more than 4-foot tall painting from 1941 is expected to sell for $3m-$5m.

Record Online Bid For Hopper Painting

Much is being made today about Christie’s sale of an Edward Hopper painting last night in New York, not so much for the price paid (only somewhat above low estimate) but the fact that it is the highest ever paid through an online bid at an international auction house. The oil, “October on Cape Cod,” is one of the few remaining in private hands.  Christie’s said last year nearly a third of its clients placed online bids.

Wyeth To Star At American Art Auction

Andrew Wyeth was only 23 when he painted “Little Caldwell’s Island” off the Maine Coast, an early example of his eye for eye for detail and talent to tell a story with brushes like the famous “Christina’s World” that came 8-years later.  The Caldwell tempera piece has a high estimate of $1.5m at Bonhams auction of American Painters next week in New York.

Noted Garden Collection Of Tiffany Glass To Sell

Until quite recently, one of the world’s premier collections of Tiffany glass was located at the Garden Museum in Japan. Over the past couple of decades Takeo Horiuchi assembled the selection of lamps, windows, art, blown glass, and ceramics from the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). Now the collection has been acquired by California-based Michaan Auctions, which will offer it on November 17^th. Among the most valuable pieces is a Cobweb Table Lamp, which has been exhibited at the Smithsonian and Metropolitan Museum in New York. No estimate was released for the lamp. although other items in the sale are expected to sell for as much as $2m.

Spectacular Maritime Art Auction

By today’s auction standards big money won’t cross the block, but beauty will, when some of the most enchanting paintings of ships at sea come to Annapolis, Md., where Heritage is selling what it terms“ perhaps the finest collection of maritime art ever assembled.”

Basquiat Painting Expected To Set $20m Record

In the early 80’s Jean-Michel Basquiat moved from street art into art galleries with his wildly neo-expressionist paintings such as an untitled, partial self-portrait that became—like all of his work–increasingly valuable after his death from a heroin overdose at 27. Christie’s will offer “Untitled, 1981,” at its Spring sale in London for what’s expected to be a record $20m.

Wyeths Lead New Hampshire Auction

Three generations of Wyeth’s have stood at the forefront of American art and illustration for much of the past century, and two of them are represented in a sale next month at Bonhams in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The auction house will offer some 500 lots of Americana and art, but collector attention is likely to focus on Jamie Wyeth’s “Julia on the Swing” from 1999 (est. $150,000-$250,000), and his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth’s “Seascape, Maine” ($60,000-$80,000).

Coeur d’Alene Art Sale Realizes $17.2m

The Chief Joseph war shirt, which is pictured in the first photograph of the celebrated Nez Perce warrior following his surrender in 1877, is among the most prized Native American artifacts, and its price at an auction this weekend reflected it: the beaded and fringed shirt sold, within estimates, for a substantial $877,500. It wasn’t, however, the most expensive lot at the Coeur d’Alene auction in Reno, billed as the world’s largest Western Art sale. “Scout’s Report,” a painting by Howard Terpning, realized $994,500, and Frank Tenny Johnson’s “Cowboys Roping the Bear” closed at $965,250.

Bierstadt Landscapes Lead Coeur d’Alene Sale

Although born in Germany, Alfred Bierstadt came to the United States when he was just a year old. Long associated with the Hudson River School of painting, he made a number of trips through the American west, which resulted in the sweeping western landscapes for which he became so well known. Two of those works—“Sunset Over The Plains” (1887) and “The Hetch Hetchy Valley”(1873)– are featured in a sale of 19^th & 20^th century Western and American art at Coeur d’Alene Auctions, in which each is estimated at $500,000-$700,000.

Warhol’s Silkscreen of Bardot Could Fetch $5m

Gunter Sachs amassed a huge, eclectic art collection that will take Sotheby’s two days in May to sell, including a Warhol portrait of the German playboy’s second wife, Brigitte Bardot, commissioned after his divorce. Although it is one of 35 Bardot silkscreens, it’s still expected to sell in the $5m range at the London auction.

Update: The Warhol silkscreen of Bardot sold for $4.7m, which experts called the bargain of the night. All told, the auction brought in $55.8m, almost double the low estimate.