Claude Monet, “La Gare Saint-Lazare, vue extérieure” (1877), oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 31 5/8 in, sold for £24,983,750 ($32,828,648) at Christie’s London evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on June 20, 2018 (image courtesy Christies Images Ltd. 2018)
Transactions is a weekly collection of sales, acquisitions, and other deals. Subscribe to receive these posts as part of the weekly Art Movements newsletter.
Franz Marc, “Drei Pferde” (1912), gouache on card, 13 1/4 x 18 3/4 in, sold for £15,421,250 at Christie’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art on June 20, 2018 (image courtesy Christies Images Ltd. 2018)
“La Gare SaintLazare, vue extérieure,” an 1877 streetscape by Claude Monet, was the top lot at Christie’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on Wednesday, hammering down for £24,983,750 ($32,828,648). The sale, which brought in a total of £128,081,750 ($168,299,420), also set a new auction record for a work by the German Expressionist Franz Marc, whose colorful gouache painting “Drei Pferde” (1912) sold for £15,421,250 ($20,263,523), well above its £2.5–3.5 million pre-sale estimate.
Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on Tuesday evening brought in a total of £87.5 million ($115.7 million), with Pablo Picasso‘s portrait painting “Buste de femme de profil (Femme écrivant)” (1932) notching the night’s highest price at £27.3 million ($36.1 million). The evening’s second most expensive lot proved to be Alberto Giacometti‘s feline bronze, “Le Chat” (1955), which brought £12.6 million ($16.7 million).
Hat traditionally attributed to Napoleon (photo © De Baecque & Associés)
A hat widely believed to have belonged to Napoleon fetched €350,000 (~$406,000) in a sale at the Lyon auction house of De Baecque et Associés. A Dutch captain named Baron Arnoud van Zuijlen van Nijevelt picked up the two-cornered military hat from the battlefield at Waterloo in 1815, one of Napoleon’s most famous military defeats. The diminutive French emperor went through 120 such hats during his lifetime.
The Lévy Gorvy booth at Art Basel 2018, including a painting by Joan Mitchell (photo © Art Basel)
A slew of works traded hands at the 2018 edition of Art Basel, including Philip Guston‘s 1955 painting “The Visit” (1955) for reportedly over $14 million, four paintings by Joan Mitchell with price tags ranging from $6 million to $14 million, and an early Louise Bourgeois sculpture, “The Three Graces” (1947), for $4.75 million.
Eugène Delacroix, “Faust in his Study (Goethe’s ‘Faust’)” (1828), lithograph (courtesy Fairfield University Art Museum)
The Fairfield University Art Museum was gifted the James M. Reed Print Collection, which includes more than 1,500 prints collected by the artist and master printer James Reed. The collection spans Old Master works by Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix to contemporary pieces by Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg.
Per Krafft the Younger, “Belisarius” (1799), oil on canvas, 125 X 94 cm (photo by Cecilia Heisser, courtesy Nationalmuseum)
Sweden’s Nationalmuseum acquired Per Krafft the Younger‘s portrait of the Byzantine general Belisarius. According to one popular story, Emperor Justinian ordered Belisarius’s eyes pulled out, and Krafft rendered the general as a blind beggar.
Graciela Iturbe, “Casa de la Muerte, Ciudad de México” (1975) (courtesy the artist and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired 37 photographs by the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide — two of which were donated by the artist, the rest of which were bought. The entire acquisition will be featured in Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico, an exhibition slated to open in January 2019.
The Petau Book of Hours, illuminated around 1495, was the star lot of Drouot‘s June 16 auction of Medieval and Renaissance Writings, fetching €4,290,000 (~$5 million). The sale brought in a total of €10,012,187 (~$11.6 million).
Maurice (1987) (courtesy the Morgan Library & Museum, New York)” width=”720″ height=”583″ srcset=”https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/06/transactions-morgan-library-james-ivory-720×583.jpg 720w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/06/transactions-morgan-library-james-ivory-600×486.jpg 600w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/06/transactions-morgan-library-james-ivory-1080×874.jpg 1080w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/06/transactions-morgan-library-james-ivory-360×291.jpg 360w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/06/transactions-morgan-library-james-ivory.jpg 1400w” sizes=”(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px”>James Ivory, Editing notebook for the film Maurice (1987) (courtesy the Morgan Library & Museum, New York)
Filmmaker James Ivory has donated his personal collection of scripts, correspondence, notebooks, and books to the Morgan Library & Museum. The gift includes material related to 32 films, like the director’s annotated copy of André Aciman‘s book Call Me by Your Name, and Ivory’s editing notebook for his 1987 film Maurice. A selection of the donated objects will be showcased in A Merchant Ivory Production, an installation opening next week.
The Speed Mansion at 505 West Ormsby Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky, was recently acquired by the Kentucky College of Art + Design. (photo by Laura Rice, courtesy Kentucky Select Properties)
The Kentucky College of Art + Design (KyCAD) acquired the historic Speed Mansion in Louisville, effectively doubling the newly independent school’s footprint. The 16,474-square-foot mansion is the former home of J.B. Speed, the businessman and philanthropist who founded the Speed Art Museum. For most of the last 30 years it has served as a law office.
Emilio Cruz, “Floating Figures,” oil on canvas, sold for $17,500 at Swann Auction Galleries on June 14, 2018 (image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries)
The June 14 sale of American art at Swann Auction Galleries made a total of $1,108,921, setting a new auction record for the Cuban-American painter Emilio Cruz in the process. His painting “Floating Figures” sold for $17,500, several times its pre-sale estimate of $1,500–2,500.
Diana Cherbuliez, “Reclamation” (2017), wasp and hornets’ nests, PVA glue, magnets, 6 x 18 1/4 x 9 3/4 in (courtesy of the artist and Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, Maine; photo by Luke Eder)
The Worcester Art Museum acquired Diana Cherbuliez‘s sculpture “Reclamation” (2017), which is made of hornet and wasp nests and hangs from the gallery ceiling.
The archive of photographer Brian Duffy donated a print from the photo session for David Bowie‘s Alladin Sane album cover to the Victoria & Albert Museum. The gift marks the two millionth visitor to the traveling exhibition David Bowie is, which originated at the V&A in 2013 and is currently on its final leg at the Brooklyn Museum.
Emma Amos, “Sandy and Her Husband” (1973), oil on canvas, 44 1/4 x 50 1/4 in (courtesy the Cleveland Museum of Art)
The Cleveland Museum of Art announced an eclectic batch of five new acquisitions: a 19th-century carved bow stand from the Democratic Republic of Congo, an ornate Fabergé cigar box, a Mannerist drawing by the Netherlandish artist Johannes Stradanus, a portrait of a violin player by the Caravaggesque painter Dirck van Baburen, and Emma Amos‘s 1973 painting “Sandy and Her Husband.”
House of Fabergé, “Cigar Box” (ca 1900), silver-gilt, enamel, sapphire mounted in gold, 20.2 x 13.5 x 4.2 cm (courtesy the Cleveland Museum of Art)
