Contributors
Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
By Malcolm Welford, Vintage Car Specialist
Archive for April, 2010
Phillips de Pury Pitches Perfect Game
April 28, 2010It doesn’t happen very often, but in a marathon day-long sale of the late Nina Abrams’ art collection, Phillips de Pury managed to sell all 319 offerings. The auction, which featured an eclectic mix of paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs by such artists as Miro, Giacometti, and émigré Russian painter David Burliuk, fetched almost double the high estimate, bringing in $6,051,912.
Read more...Stamps For Charity
April 27, 2010Bill Gross is best known as the manager of Pimco, the world’s biggest bond fund. But in the world of philately, he’s just as renowned for his fabulous collection, a portion of which will be on view when New York’s Spink Shreves Gallery auctions choice selections for charity. The 159 lots from Western Europe and its Colonies are expected to raise more than $1 million for Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders.
Read more...Long Lost Collection To Be Sold
April 26, 2010For forty years, the storied collection of the late Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard sat forgotten in a bank vault. For another thirty-one years since its discovery in 1979, the collection, which includes works by Cezanne, Degas, Matisse, Picasso and Derain, has been the subject of litigation. Now Sotheby’s will finally auction 140 of Vollard’s pieces in London and Paris in late June.
Read more...Magnificent Jewels And Prices
April 23, 2010Ahead of Sotheby’s sale of Patricia’s Kluge’s Charlottesville estate and its contests next month, the auction house offered a number of Kluge’s baubles in its Magnificent Jewels sale this week, which netted almost $35 million. Prices for the items from Kluge’s collection were substantially above expectations, with a 20-carat diamond ring selling for $962,000, considerably above its pre-sale estimate of $150,000-$200,000.
Read more...Titanic Sales Soar
April 23, 2010Almost 100 years after she sank, the Titanic continues to exert a powerful pull on the public imagination, witness this week’s sale of memorabilia from the doomed ship at Wiltshire’s Henry Aldrich & Sons. Top seller, at almost $85,000, was a letter from a first-class passenger named Adolphe Saafeld to his “Wifey,” in which he described life on the Titanic in vivid detail. Five days later the ship went down, and Saafeld with it.
Read more...A Rare Home Sale from Sotheby’s
April 22, 2010It isn’t the sort of thing Sotheby’s ordinarily does, but then again this isn’t the sort of house one ordinarily encounters. For the first time in 20 years, Sotheby’s will conduct a 2-day home auction, selling the vast contents of Virginia billionaire Patricia Kluge’s 45-room Albermarle House, near Charlottesville, Virginia.
Read more...Bonhams Floats Record
April 20, 2010In its New York sale of martime art and ship models last Friday, Bonhams set a new world record when a “cut-away” model of the R.M.S. Ascania (circa 1925) sold for $122,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of $50-$70,000. In all, the 100 lot offering netted over $1.385 million
Read more...Something For Everyone
April 19, 2010Christie’s will be offering a huge jumble of art on April 20, 2010, in New York under the heading of “500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe.” The idea was big hit in London and Paris, and generates a diverse catalog that might entice buyers who had not considered some of the lots offered until they see them.
Read more...The Russians Are Coming
April 19, 2010Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s will be hosting substantial sales of Russian Art later this week. Sotheby’s offering is a mélange of 359 lots from several collections, including actress Ruth Ford’s, featuring paintings by Pavel Tscelitchew as well as works by Faberge. Over at Christie’s the highlight will be Konstantin Makovsky’s “In From A Stroll,” with an estimate of $400,000-$600,000.
Read more...Zany Zoo
April 17, 2010The Isle of Wight museum was called Brading the Experience—and a bizarre experience it was given the collection: a bestiary of some 250 stuffed animals as well as “rogue taxidermies,” hybrids of animals combined to form strange, sometimes grotesque products of the Victorian imagination: a flying kitten, fused lambs, a unicorn. Duke’s Auction House in Dorchester, England sold the lot this week, netting almost $450,000, considerably more than estimated.
Read more...Jewels of Two Crowns
April 16, 2010To Catherine the Great of Russia, a magnificent collection of jewelry was as important as a great army. Fortunately for her, as ruler of what was then the world’s largest and wealthiest empire, she had both. Next week, at Christie’s New York sale of Jewels, one of Catherine’s treasures, an Emerald brooch, will be offered for the first time in 40 years. It’s estimated to sell for between $1 and $1.5 million.
Read more...Time And Money
April 15, 2010Time is money, we’re told, but Christie’s Geneva auction of “important” watches early next month may give the old saying new wrinkles. The sale’s centerpiece, a Patek Philippe 18K gold perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch with moon phases, is expected to bring between $1.4 and $2.4 million.
Read more...Picasso, Picasso, Everywhere. Bring $
April 14, 2010Two major Picasso paintings will come to market in May, 2010, setting off wild speculation about prices, while the Met plans a first time exhibition of every Picasso piece it owns: paintings, sculptures, drawings and ceramics. Christie’s is auctioning a treasured painting of Picasso’s mistress asleep, and Sotheby’s has a painting consigned by the estate of one of JFK’s sisters.
Read more...Christie’s Goes Green
April 13, 2010Want to hang out with Hugh Jackman or Cameron Diaz? How about tennis with John McEnroe, dinner with Eli Manning, or an evening at the theatre with Sigourney Weaver? Perhaps you’d rather just tour the Galapagos or loll in Bali. Christie’s will auction off these outings and some 200 others, along with valuable artwork and jewelry at its first annual Green Auction, to benefit four environmental non-profits.
Read more...Love Letters To America
April 12, 2010When Continental solders at Valley Forge learned that America had made an alliance with France, they shot cannons and cheered, “Long live the king of France.” That report, and many other documents written by such Revolutionary War luminaries as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, will be featured in the first of a series of sales of the Copley Library’s rare manuscripts.
Read more...
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