Art News Galore

Rembrandt set to sell for record figure?

Filed under: Art Sales — Alan @ 6:23 am

Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man was on display Friday at Christie’s in lieu of its sale this coming Tuesday.  This was the first showing of the portrait since 1970.

Currently the highest amount that a Rembrandt has sold for was £19.8 in December of 2000, beating pre-sale estimates that placed its value around £5m.

Since that stunning sale, experts at Christie’s expect that Portrait of a Man my garnish anywhere between £18m and £25m, although it could possibly go for much more, as the last few auctions of famous works have been setting their own records.

Head of the Christie’s Old Masters department, Richard Knight, said that the painting was completed two years after Rembrandt was said to have become bankrupt.

Rembrandt did compile a large amount of savings during his most productive years, 1630-1650, but spent most of his money quickly on other notable pieces of art.  After he became broke, he had to sell his home and his collection.

Knight commented that the painting shows Rembrandt’s genius due to the fact that the style of painting was ahead of its time and showed Rembrandt’s strong use of expressive colour.

The painting was originally first discovered in 1847, almost two centuries after it was first painted, and owned in the 20^th century by an heir to a supermarket, who later donated it to Columbia University, who then sold it to a private owner.

Rembrandt’s monumental painting will be included in the Christie’s sale on December 8^th that is a collection of 19^th century art and Old Masters collection.

Warhol art fails to sell at Christie’s

Filed under: Art Sales — Alan @ 7:10 am

Pieces of art by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol have not sold despite high hopes at a contemporary art auction that took place in New York.

However, although they did not sell, the rest of the pieces at the Christie’s sale added up to a total of about £45m which the auctioneers declared were closer to the sale totals of auctions before the recession hit.

The auction house felt that the Warhol and Basquiat pieces did not sell due to the fact they only had an appeal for collectors of the artists. The pieces were expected to have sold for about £4.5m and £7.1m respectively.

At the same time that the two collectors’ pieces did not amass any bids, other pieces by artists such as Jasper Johns and Jeff Koons sold past expectations. In fact, some items sold double what was estimated although estimates were low to encourage bidders to show.

One Warhol piece that did perform well at the auction was a £485,000 portrait of Michael Jackson. The last owner of the Jackson painting was said to have purchased it from the New York Jackson foundation.