Wednesday 9 november
2007, at Christie's, historical sale with the record of 87,9 M$ for the
so much awaited portrait of Mrs. Bloch Bauer by the Master Viennese.
A Great sale is a great show. Wednesday evening, Christie's gave
us this great spectacle with million dollars, like each New Yorkean
season. The house of François Pinault offered a “historical
evening” like the market in forever known, by coming very close to
half-milliard of dollars with 491 M$ of market product, beyond the high
estimate of 427,8 M$, with six unsold goods only out of 84 batches. “It
is the most incredible sale!” exclaimed, after two long hours and half
of bidding, the “auctioneer” Christopher Burge, under the cameras of
television, very serious in his strict black costume in spite of the
data-processing bug which delayed one hour the publication of the
results.
As at the theatre, environment started to heat a long time before the
first blow of hammer (2,7 M$ for a delicate marble of Rodin carried by
the broker Marc Blondeau) with its procession of stars of all-New York
and all-Paris. Usual figures of this impressionist and modern market.
1500 people ran inside the two rooms ready to swallow some common
Chagall, Monet or Renoir before vibrating, with number 51, for the four
Klimt recently given back to the heirs by the Austrian State. The room
retained its breath for the star, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II,
the wife of the Jewish industrialist Czech Ferdinand, died early in
1925.
Less spectacular than the other portrait of Adele on bottom gold, icon
of the Master Viennese bought in deprived, to 135 M$, by Ronald Lauder,
for his Neue Gallery, the beautiful one with the cheeks turned pink
with its black hat and its white dress flew away to 87,9 M$, well
beyond the 40 to 60 M$ hoped. Record for artist largely applauded,
under eye of heiress Maria Altmann, niece of Adele come from Los
Angeles, which deplored the fact that “Austria did not mobilize itself
to keep these masterpieces, just like Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(Lacam) where they were exposed until this summer before being shown in
Neue Galerie”. It was a true blow of theatre with a third encherissor
surprised - a private collector, announces Christie' S - appearing to
74 M$ on the telephone of Guy Bennet, chief of the impressionist and
modern department.
The three other Klimt fused: 31 M$, far from the estimate from 18 to 25
M$ for the Houses with Unterach on Attersee (1916) removed by a couple
in the room; 33 M$ on the telephone for Apple tree I (1912); 40,3 M$,
also on the telephone, for the sublime Forest of birches (1903) whose
market hoped still better. After this explosion of bidding, the room
filled by the spectacle was emptied in a flash, in a great crash
throwing a shade on the following batches, to the drawing of Schiele
allocated to the astronomical price of 11,21 M$.
There is no doubt that the excitation around these Klimt feeded this
sale record which formerly included/understood other high-speed
motorboats like Gauguin of Tahiti in the family of the Sultan of
Brunei. A “perfect composition but too punt of the fact perhaps of
restoration”, opinion of certain experts, carried so in the estimate,
to 40 M$. Or like Kirchner (Scene of Berliner street), the last in
private hands of a series of eleven fabrics almost all in the museums,
recently restored with the heirs to Alfred and Thekla Hess, Jewish
collectors with Erfurt in Germany. Estimated 18 at 25 M$, this fabric
expressionnist was removed at the price record of 38 M$ by Daniela of
Luxembourg for Neue Galerie whereas the museum Die Brücke in
Berlin had tried to take it again.
Would the houses of sales have more and more they concern with the
fabrics coming from restitutions of Jewish goods, carries open to
certain abuses and juicy revenue for lawyers? Christie's in paid the
expenses with its Portrait of Angel de Soto claimed with his owner,
Andrew Lloyd Webber by Julius H. Schoeps, the heir to a Jewish banker
asserting that his/her large uncle would have been forced to sell this
Picasso of the blue period during the mode Nazi, before his death, in
1935. And this after being however débouté in its
complaint by the federal court. A loss of earnings at least 40 to 60 M$
because of this Picasso withdrawn in extremis who would have made cross
in Christie' s the bar of the 500 M$.
“The market does not show the least weakness, fault or small sign of
skid”, observes the broker in art of Manhattan, Jose Mugrabi, amazed by
“such an surge at new money and new customers, increasingly richer with
each new generation”. With 238 M$ of market product, in the fork of 219
M$ with 299 M$ (86,8% in batch and 83% in value) for works in majority
known of the market and much less spectacular than at Christie' s,
Sotheby' surprised S.A., the day before, the room come to test
environment, with however a certain skepticism.
It does not matter if the majority of the tables had passed to the
biddings these last years. The prices flamed. Bought 18,1 M$ six years
ago by Acquavella, at Christie' S in London, the Still life in the
fruits and with the earthenware jar of 1895 36,9 M$ on the telephone
resold (beyond the high estimate, already strong, of 35 M$!). One
speaks about a guarantee of 30 M$ for this “too collected composition”
of opinion of expert. Sold 5,8 M$ at Christie's in May 1997, Modigliani
of the cover, the Son of the caretaker, with his piercing eyes green,
was carried to 31 M$ (well above the 18 M$ estimated), against a
telephone, by the galerist Doris Amman. The trade tried to remain in
the race: the Nahmad clan carried to 4,8 M$, the Portrait of Paul
Guillaume, already passed in 1996 (3,4 M$ paid at Christie' S by Steve
Wynn) and in 2000 (4,6 M$ at Sotheby' S). Sounding and stumbling
results which have for some a logic (too estimated obsolete Monet and,
the Beach with Trouville, sold 10,7 M$ in 1988 and plastered in 16,4
M$), for others not (Picasso, the Rescue, of 1932, stopped Net with
10,7 M$).
B é a t r i c e d e R o c h e b o u e
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