At their August 17th World and Ancient Coins Platinum Night, Heritage Auctions offered the legendary “First Dollar of the New World.” According to mint records, the coin is one of eight reales struck by assayer Francisco del Rincón for the Spanish in 1538. Of the eight recorded, only three known examples of the coin exist today. Minted in Mexico City, the coin sunk aboard the shipwreck of the "Golden Fleece" in 1550.
Art News
Patriarchs of the Grove by William Wendt (1865-1946), leads Bonhams' California and Western Painting Auction, August 7th, in Los Angeles. Estimated at $250,000-350,000, Patriarchs of the Grove is one of Wendt’s most coveted canvases.
Bonhams offered a number of high-quality furnishings, accessories, and art for their Home and Interiors Auction this morning. The total sale was £747,950, or $983,239 USD. Sets of silver candelabra from the Painted Hall in Greenwich were a highlight of the Auction. Commissioned in 1939, bearing the monogram of reigning monarch George VI, the meticulously cleaned and restored candelabra add elegance and grandeur to their surroundings.
Phillips Auction House has a new exhibition this summer that brings together fashion, art, culture, and charity. Curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Tongue + Chic features shoes designed by some of today’s most important artists, including KAWS, Kehinde Wiley, Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. Borrowed from private collections and museums, the objects on display show that shoes are a blank canvas with unlimited potential for expression.
At their auction of English Literature, History, Science, Children’s Books and Illustrations yesterday, Sotheby’s broke auction records with the sale of the Original Map of the Hundred Acre Wood. A testament to the timeless of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, and the lasting impact of the work of illustrator E.H.
The upcoming sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art at Sotheby’s offers an array of paintings and drawings by Simeon Solomon. An inventive artist of the British Aesthetic Movement, Solomon upheld the creed of “art for art’s sake,” creating dreamy, sensual paintings even in the midst of personal tragedy.
What is sure to be a high point of a week of auctions in London, Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale set several records on July 5. The top selling lot was Ludovico Carracci’s Portrait of Carlo Alberto Rati Opizzoni in armour, three-quarter-length, wearing the Order of the Knights of Malta, the city of Bologna beyond, which sold for $6.7 million, becoming the second highest price for the artist at auction.
June 27th was another record-breaking evening in the art auction world. Bidding was fierce at Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London, which made 41% more than last year. One of the top achieving works, Francis Bacon’s Interior of a room (1935), was a highlight of the sale, going for $3,748,158.
Considered a prime example of Monet’s skill and power, La Gare Saint-Lazare, vue extérieure sold for an impressive $32 million. Completed over a three month period of intense creativity in 1877, La Gare is one of a series of 12 paintings depicting the oldest railway station in France. Monet’s bold brush strokes capture the bustling energy of the Parisian train station and the vibrant power of the steam engine forging towards the platform. Of the 12 Gare paintings, 9 are in public institutions and 3 are in private hands.
One of the most valuable illustrated books ever produced, a first edition of John James Audubon’s “The Birds of America,” went up for auction at Christie’s in New York, June 14th, and sold for USD $9,650,000. This is nearly $2 million more than when this particular copy had sold to American collector Carl Knobloch in 2012 for $7.9 million.
