Rembrandt van Rijn “A Beggar Seated on a Bank” (1630) (image courtesy Swann Galleries)
A Swann Galleries sale of Old Master Through Modern Prints hit over $398,000 in sales. Topping the lots were works by Rembrandt van Rijn, including an etching of “Pieter Haaring” (1655), which went for $81,250, and “A Beggar Seated on a Bank” (1630), which went for $60,000. An etching by Paul Klee, “Der Held mit dem Flügel–Inv. 2.” (1905), hit second place in the lots, selling for $75,000.
The Bern Museum of Fine Art will part with a painting by Édouard Manet, “Ships at Sea in Stormy Weather” (1873), for $4 million — one of the museum’s most valuable pieces from the artist that came from the collection of the late collector Cornelius Gurlitt. Gurlitt’s collection is known for including several verified artworks looted by the Nazis, and when Gurlitt died in 2014, the museum inherited his collection along with the responsibility of restituting the works that were in fact looted. In order to sell this piece, the museum’s director Nina Zimmer told The Art Newspaper, “it had to be a work under no suspicion that it was looted by the Nazis.”
The iconic black outfit worn in the film Grease by Olivia Newton-John has sold for $405,700 in a Julien’s auction of the actress’s belongings, the BBC reported. Newton-John famously sang and danced in the role opposite John Travolta, and other items sold include her shooting script for the film as well as the pink gown she wore to its premiere several decades ago.
A Christie’s online sale of Japanese and Korean Art reached a final sales receipt of $871,750. The top lot was a woodblock print of Katsuhika Hokusai’s “Kanagawa oki nami ura (Under the well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa),” which sold for $250,000.
A Christie’s sale of China Trade Paintings: Selections from the Kelton Collection totaled at £1,616,500 (~$2,071,868) before bidding ended. The top lot of the bunch: a scene credited to the Chinese School, “The Tea Warehouses at Canton: Tea being delivered to the warehouse; and Packing the tea chests for export” (circa 1820), which sold for £68,750 (~$88,121).
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There must be a lesson in Vasilis Katsoupis’s film Inside about the vacuousness of the art market or the claustrophobia of exhibition spaces — I just don’t care.
Ten Painful Stories of the Dutch Colonial Slave Trade
The Rijksmuseum’s traveling show strives to remind us that we are all, in some way, a part of this chapter of human history, whose legacy continues today.
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation Presents The Feminine in Abstract Painting
Curated by Jennifer Samet and Andrea Belag, this group exhibition in NYC explores the feminine through aesthetics, as opposed to identity or gender.
Textured Histories at Shiprock Santa Fe
The Santa Fe gallery features Indigenous textiles and jewelry from the early 19th century to today.
Renaissance Portrait of “Ugly Duchess” Likely Depicts a Man
A curator at London’s National Gallery believes the subject of painter Quinten Massys’s painting “is most likely a he.”
NYU Steinhardt Opens 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
Taking place at 80WSE Gallery in New York’s Greenwich Village, Part I is on view from late March through April while Part II opens in May.
Hokusai’s “Great Wave” Makes a Splash at Auction
An edition of the iconic woodblock print broke records when it sold for $2.8M this week.
MTV’s The Exhibit Is Back With an Inflatable Dolphin
Episode four, in which artists tackled themes of justice and injustice, was the most lifeless of the reality TV show so far.
Miniature Worlds: Joseph Cornell, Ray Johnson, Yayoi Kusama
Through small-scale works, this exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York examines Cornell’s prominent role in the lives and careers of Johnson and Kusama.
Florida Principal Ousted Over “Pornographic” Michelangelo Sculpture
Parents complained that the famous sculpture was shown to their sixth graders.
Tickets to Sold-Out Vermeer Show Are Going for Hundreds
The online resale market for the Rijksmuseum’s smash exhibition is booming, with tickets selling on eBay for over $2K.
The Wider World and Scrimshaw
On March 28, join the New Bedford Whaling Museum online and in-person for a symposium on global carving traditions from across the Pacific Rim.
Three Looted Antiquities at the Met Repatriated to Turkey
Nine other repatriated works were seized from Met Trustee Shelby White, whose collection was subject to a criminal investigation.
Required Reading
This week, the world’s lightest paint, Pakistan’s feminist movement, World Puppy Day, and were some of Vermeer’s paintings created by his daughter?