As one would expect, the semi-annual Oak Interior auction at Bonhams London is chockful of sturdy chairs and clunky chests. There’s also plenty of antique iron, brass, pewter, stone, and copper–if you happen to be furnishing a castle, this is the sale for you–but the lot with the most presence is this rough-hewn English oak jail door dating from the 1630s (or earlier) and showing “fascinating and macabre prisoner graffiti,” according to the auctioneer.
Art News
Moove over, Manhattan, cow coming through! And not just any cow, this one’s a molded plaster bovine sculpture drawn and painted by beloved children’s author/illustrator Maurice Sendak in the manner of his Caldecott Medal-winning book, Where the Wild Things Are.
With two upcoming auctions, Christie's offers the unique opportunity to compare the artistic outputs of some modern masters. Contemporary Edition, on February 27, features a variety of prints from Joan Mitchell, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and others. Their Post-War to Present sale, taking place the next day, offers singular works from some of the same artists.
Today at auction, Swann offers the opportunity to own iconic and historic works, some at bargain prices. In a wide-ranging auction of nearly 500 lots, there are vintage posters from around the world and across genres.
What looks to be an antique medicine chest stuffed with sticks and seeds is, it turns out, an object that bridges the divide between science and religion. Many Victorians wanted to stick to their Christian faith, even as Mary Anning unearthed damning fossils and Charles Darwin published his theory of natural selection, so they hedged their bets, as it were, becoming amateur naturalists—quaintly pasting seaweed and flowers into albums—while remaining loyal to their Sunday School stories.
Now at Phillips’ New York gallery space, the AMERICAN AFRICAN AMERICAN selling exhibition examines the historical and social impact of African American artists from the 1950’s to the present. Open to the public through February 8, this major exhibition showcases 64 artists and over 60 works in a variety of genres.
Carved with a scene depicting, on the left, an elaborately turbanned figure and, at right, a physician who holds aloft a flask, the wooden object seen above is, to put it quite bluntly, a 'piss-pot' lid or cover.
It was part of a sale held by Bonhams in London on September 18–one of their regular Oak Interior sales in which furniture or furnishings of all shapes and sizes are the core offering, but where candlesticks, pots, plates and all sorts of other household items are to be found.
Phillips’ recent two-day 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design Auction event in Hong Kong, with an Evening Sale November 25th, and an inaugural Day Sale the 26th, reached combined sales of $19.7 million. The Evening Sale realized $13,130,939 and the Day Sale realized $6,570,358. Both auctions offered stellar examples of both Western and Asian art.
Born into considerable wealth in Milwaukee, but resident in England for the last three decades of his life, Stanley J. Seeger (1930-2011) was a quite remarkable collector, who, together with his partner of 32 years, Christopher Cone, filled homes in England and around the world with extraordinarily varied collections of art, antiques and the arcane.
This week in Geneva, Sotheby’s auction of the Bourbon Parma family collection of royal jewels made auction history. Containing one hundred pieces, the auction realized $53.1 million, over seven times the pre-sale high estimate of $7 million. Among the collection were pieces that belonged to Queen Marie Antoinette. This auction of historic jewels broke the $50.3 million record established by the 1987 sale of jewels of the Duchess of Windsor.
