Art and Antiques Fair in London This Week
Vincennes Porcelain Cup and Saucer, circa 1752, after François Boucher, with factory marks and the painter's marks for Mutel and Vielliard.
Art Antiques London
London, 9 — 16 June 2010
As noted at ArtInfo, the Art Antiques London fair held in Kensington Gardens wraps up today. Among the top five picks of Art + Auction executive editor Meghan Dailey is this cup and saucer from the dealer Adrian Sassoon, “an extremely rare, circa 1752 yellow-ground Vincennes cup and saucer decorated with scenes, in blue, of a boy copied from François Boucher engravings. Sassoon says it’s the first time in decades that he’s offered yellow-ground pieces, which he explains are uncommon and may have been influenced by the Chinese porcelain of the time. The pair is £38,000 ($55,260).”
For Dailey’s other picks, click here»
London Print Fair Starts Today
The 25th London Original Print Fair
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 29 April — 3 May 2010
Howard Hodgkin, "Night Palm," 1990 Hand-coloured etching with carborundum
This April, sixty-seven leading UK and international exhibitors will be brought together for the 25th anniversary of The London Original Print Fair, making it not only the longest-running print fair in the world but also the longest-running art Fair in London. Each year collectors flock to this established event which continues to offer an unrivalled spectrum of prints, covering all periods of Western art, including Canaletto’s etchings and Hogarth’s engravings, and the work of the great nineteenth and twentieth century printmakers. . .
This year sees a rise in exhibitors from Europe, including the return of 17th- and 18th-century French art specialists A & D Martinez (Paris), Pop Art experts Burkhard Eikelmann (Düsseldorf) and first time Belgian exhibitor Winwood Gallery, who will be showcasing a rare collection of original Hockney prints, selling at a wide price range.
For the first time, the Fair has partnered with the Burlington Arcade, which runs adjacent to the Royal Academy. Britain’s first and most beautiful shopping arcade will showcase a ‘print trail’, focused on the theme of ‘Great British Artists’. Select prints will be on display in stores throughout the Arcade leading up to and during the Fair, and retailers will have a limited number of Fair passes to give away to customers.
For a special loan exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary, Antony Griffiths, Keeper of Prints at the British Museum, has been invited to choose a selection of prints from the collection. Out of the Loop will feature works that have never been on public display and will range from rare 15th century engravings to lithographs from the 1920s. Griffiths says “ I feel the need to bring this subterranean world out into public prominence…it shows you how powerful prints can be.” In addition to the exhibition, Griffiths will be holding a talk and walk through the exhibition at 12 noon on Bank Holiday Monday 3 May. . .
Godden’s Collection of Blue and White Porcelain at Bonham’s
The following press release from Bonham’s recently appeared at Art Daily:
Rare Worcester plate painted with 'Boys at Play', ca. 1752, est. £10,000-12,000. Photo: Bonhams.
An outstanding collection of Blue and White Porcelain assembled by the renowned ceramics expert Geoffrey Godden is to be auctioned at Bonhams on Wednesday 30th June. Godden’s encyclopaedic knowledge has earned him the nickname ‘God’ to many in the ceramics field, and this collection, many items of which are included in his Guide to British Blue & White Porcelain, is much admired. “Bonhams is honoured to be selling such a fine collection put together by this celebrated expert. Many of the pieces are outstanding examples of blue and white, and the fact that they can be seen in Geoffrey’s books will add considerable interest. They would be a valuable addition to any collection.” says Fergus Gambon, Director of Bonhams European Ceramics Department.
Geoffrey Godden, a leading British authority on ceramics, and the author of over 30 books on the subject, was the second generation of an antique dealing family. He learnt about antiques, and particularly ceramics, in his father’s shop in Worthing before starting to collect English blue and white in 1948 whilst on National Service. One of his first purchases was three teapots from the sale of the contents of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, which he bought for £11. One of these (c.1746-48) is included in this auction and is now expected to fetch £15,000-20,000. His extensive reference collection has grown over the following sixty years and Godden has devoted his life to cutting-edge academic research into British ceramic history, and to publishing the results of his studies.
This auction of more than 200 pieces of blue and white presents a remarkable opportunity to acquire famous pieces of English porcelain, for most are published in Godden’s many well-known books. Examples of Limehouse, Vauxhall, Isleworth, Worcester, and of course Lowestoft, his personal favourite, are included in the sale. Highlights include a very rare Worcester plate painted with ‘Boys at Play’, circa 1752, estimate £10,000-12,000; an Isleworth tankard, inscribed with initials and dated 1779 (£6,000-8,000) and a Lowestoft miniature or toy teapot, circa 1785 (£6,000-8,000).
A Fine Week to Be in the Netherlands, Too
The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF)
Maastricht, 12-21 March 2010
The annual European Fine Art Fair at Maastricht opened this past weekend and runs until Sunday. Writing for The New York Times (14 March 2010), Carol Vogel notes “gems” such as a “a 1796 portrait of Countess Tolstoy, the writer’s grandmother, by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun hanging in a closet at Robilant & Voena, dealers from London and Milan (price: about $4 million), or a Samuel Palmer landscape secreted in a small nook in the stand of the London dealer Lowell Libson.”
The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) website includes a terrific 644-page fair catalogue.
Washington at Auction, Part II
At the website of The Art Newspaper, Helen Stoilas notes that:
A portrait of George Washington reportedly by Gilbert Stuart, the most famous portraitist of early American presidents, is going up for auction. The painting hung untouched in the home of an upstate New York family for generations and has been estimated to fetch between $200,000-$300,000 when it goes up for sale 27 March at Cottone Auctions of Geneseo, New York.
For the rest of the article, click here»
Was this Washington’s Yorktown Map? — At This Price One Hopes So
In the March digital edition of Fine Books & Collections, Ian McKay reports on some auction highlights, including this map from the Revolutionary War, which sold for $1.15 million.
Manuscript Plan of the Battle of Yorktown, auctioned by James Julia of Fairfield, Maine
What was to become the most expensive American map ever sold at auction was entered for sale without reserve and initially given a wide-open estimate of just $5,000 to $50,000 in this Maine sale. Showing the disposition of the besieged British troops and the combined American and French forces at Yorktown, it was executed on or around October 29, 1781, ten days after the final, unconditional surrender by the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, to George Washington. The drawing up of the map was overseen if not directly accomplished by Lieutenant Colonel Jean Baptiste Gouvion, who in 1777 had been one of a group of French military engineers transferred to the American forces following a direct request from the Continental Congress. He was present at that critical battle. A larger version of the map exists in the National Archives, but there is now speculation that its map may have been one drawn up for the Continental Congress and that the smaller and much better preserved example offered in New England may have been Washington’s own. And if not Washington’s own, at least that of his aide-de-camp, Tobias Lear, who handled a lot of his commander’s papers and through whose family it had passed down. . . .
For the full article, click here»
New York Ceramics Fair
At The Magazine Antiques (20 January 2010), Carolyn Kelly surveys a selection of English ceramics:
Whieldon-type creamware platter, Staffordshire, c. 1760 (John Howard)
Ceramics 101: A Sampling of Antique English Wares
With the dizzying array of wares on display this week at the New York Ceramics Fair (20-24 January 2010), it seems like an opportune time to review some of the basics of the medium. Though most of our readers are familiar with names like Wedgwood and Grueby, we’ve rounded-up a few quintessential examples of English ceramics as an introduction to the widely varied styles that have been created in clay. . .
For the full article, click here»
Sotheby’s Shines
As reported by Judd Tully for Art Info (28 January 2010):
NEW YORK—In sharp contrast to its arch rival Christie’s more subdued sale yesterday, Sotheby’s staged a rousing morning session of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture today that realized $53,376,500, nicely within its pre-sale estimate range of $38 million to $55 million (Sale N08610). Top lot honors went to Jupiter and Antiope, a decidedly bawdy and large-scale mythological scene from 1612 by Hendrick Goltzius, which sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for a record $6,802,500 (est. $8–12 million). . .
For the full article, click here»
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Greuze, "Madame van Westrenen of Tremaat"
"Pluto and Proserpina," ca. 1700
In terms of surpassing expectations, ‘top honors’ might be better assigned to an Austrian ivory group of Pluto and Proserpina, attributed to Matthias Steinl (ca. 1700), which sold for $1.2 million — ten times its minimum estimate. Antonio Joli’s Death Leap of Marcus Curtius, sold by the L.A. County Museum, went for $122,500 (double its estimate). Greuze’s Portrait of Madame Van Westrenenen of Tremaat sold for $182,500 ($80-120,000 estimate), and whereas a large Robert canvas failed to sell earlier in the week at Christie’s, the painter’s more modestly scaled Garden Scene with a Canal sold at Sotheby’s for $482,500 ($150-250,000 estimate).– C.H.
For additional coverage at Artdaily.org, click here»
Auction Results from Christie’s
The enormous canvas by Hubert Robert, Le pont sur le torrent , found no buyer at Christie’s sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors (sale 2282); nor did works by Pater and Gainsborough. But there certainly were some bright spots: a lovely painting by Jean Baptiste Oudry of The Watchful Doe (Biche aux Augets) sold for over $1 million, surpassing its high-end estimate of $900,000, and Panini’s View of Piazza del Popolo, Rome went for $1.2 million (well beyond its $800,000 estimate). Most of the media attention, however, goes to the Getty Museum, which acquired Boilly’s Entrance to the Turkish Garden (1812).
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As reported by Art Info:
NEW YORK—This morning’s auction at Christie’s of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, & Watercolors, a rather selective affair, was given a bit of high drama thanks to buyers at Los Angeles’s Getty Museum. The museum, which also set tongues wagging earlier this month with its announcement that director Michael Brand would be stepping down, turned heads by acquiring the auction’s cover lot, Louis Leopold Boilly’s lively Paris street scene The Entrance to the Turkish Garden Café (1812), for a record-shattering $4,562,500. The work had been estimated at $3 million to $5 million. The sale crushed the previous auction mark for Boilly, set at the same house in January 1994, when Carnival on the Boulevard du Crime (1832) made $937,500. “It is arguably the artist’s greatest picture,” said Scott Schaefer, senior curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum, moments after the sale, “and we paid the same price the seller did 20 years ago.” . . .
For the full article, click here»
Robert Up for Auction on January 27th
As reported by Artdaily.org:
Hubert Robert, "Le pont sur le torrent," 13 x 20', 1780s, commissioned by Duc de Luynes for his hôtel particulier in the St-Germain quarter of Paris
Following the record-breaking success of its Old Master & 19th Century Art sale in December in London, Christie’s will present its flagship New York sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors in a two-part auction on Wednesday, January 27. This extraordinary sale of over 320 works presents the best examples of European art from the 15th to the 19th century, and features master works and recent rediscoveries from Lucas Cranach the Elder, Jan Brueghel II, Thomas Gainsborough, Gaetano Gandolfi, Louis Léopold Boilly, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, and Samuel Palmer, among others. Total sales are expected to achieve in
excess of $48 million.
At over 20 feet in width, Le pont sur le torrent (estimate: $2-3 million) by the 18th-century French master Hubert Robert (1733-1808) is one of the largest Old Master paintings ever to be offered at Christie’s New York. This vast painting, which depicts a wild torrent of roaring waters descending into a waterfall below an arched stone bridge, was originally commissioned by the Duc de Luynes (1748-1793) for the dining room of his opulent Paris townhouse. Subsequent owners include the American newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, who installed the painting and its equally massive mate La cascade in his beachfront castle in Sands Point, Long Island. Though the pair was separated in later years, Le pont sur torrent survives in its original state as a masterpiece of decorative painting with a dominating presence that is nearly cinematic in effect. Given its immense size, the canvas will be stretched on-site and installed in Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries – the first time in more than 50 years that the painting will be publicly displayed. Hubert Robert’s vast canvas depicting a wild torrent of roaring waters that descend into a waterfall, surmounted by an ancient, arched bridge and peopled with laundresses and fishermen, is one of the largest works that the artist ever attempted — it measures nearly 20 feet wide — as well as one of the best documented. It was commissioned in the mid-1780s by the Duc de Luynes (1748-1793) for the dining room of his opulent townhouse in the rue Saint-Dominique in the Quartier Saint-Germain in Paris, along with a pendant of identical size depicting a more placid landscape also featuring a waterfall. In payment for the two paintings — and perhaps for the promise of other works as well — Robert was granted on the 22 March 1786 the immense sum of 25,000 livres in principal by the duke, which provided the artist with a rente (or annuity) of 2000 livres a year in interest payments for life (see Jean de Cayeux, op. cit.). It was an indication of the high position Robert held in the Parisian art world of the time, as few painters of the era were paid anything approaching that amount for two paintings, regardless of their size. . . .
For the full article, click here»
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