The sale of Hokusai’s famous “Great Wave” print for $2.8 million at Christie’s sets a new record. On Tuesday, a woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai sold at Christie’s in New York for $2.8 million. The print, which was only expected to sell for between $500,000 and $700,000, set a new record high price at the […]
Beyond Leonardo: the artists who led the auctions in 2017
This year, the art market saw a return to form, with sellers regaining confidence in consigning good works. We survey the top five results in key markets Impressionist & Modern Vincent van Gogh, Laboureur dans un champ (1889), $81.3m (£62.1m), Christie’s New York, 13 November Fernand Léger, Contraste de forms (1913), $70m (£53.5m), Christie’s New […]
Qi Baishi paintings set new $141m record for Chinese artist
A 12-panel set of ink-brush paintings by the Chinese traditional master Qi Baishi sold on Sunday, 17 December, at Poly Auction Beijing for a record RMB931.5m ($141m). The sale, to an undisclosed Chinese buyer, is the highest auction price for a Chinese artist. Twelve Landscape Screens, painted in 1925 and measuring 1.8m by 47 cm, […]
Newly discovered Artemisia Gentileschi painting sells for €2.4m at auction in Paris
A previously unknown Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi sold at Drouot in Paris on 19 December for an artist record of €2,360,600 (€1.850m at the hammer, against an estimate of €300,000-€400,000). The work, which dates from the same period (1614-16) as another Saint Catherine picture by the artist held […]
Re-discoveries lead London Old Master auctions
Poor Rembrandt. Of all the greats, he is perhaps the artist most concerned with truth—but also the artist whose works have been most hopelessly muddled by art historians. Lot 10 in Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on 7 December was a case in point: a perfectly respectable portrait of Petronella Buys, traceable within her lifetime […]
Saudi Prince Revealed as Buyer of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’
The buyer of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500), which as of last month is the most expensive artwork ever sold, is the Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud. The buyer’s identity, reported by the New York Times this evening, was discovered in the midst of an investigation into Saudi Arabia’s […]
Was a ‘double-bind guarantee’ behind the $450m Leonardo sale?
The sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for $450m (including fees) at Christie’s New York on 15 November shattered every record for art prices. Since then, speculation about the identity of the buyer has ranged from Chinese billionaires to the Microsoft co-founder and Leonardo Codex collector Bill Gates; from French government officials for Abu […]
Artworks by Kennedy and Trump up for auction
One piece of art features a row of tall New York City buildings rising above squiggly green trees and bright-yellow taxi cabs that wind through the streets below. The other shows a collection of homes with slanted roofs packed along a scenic waterfront, with several sailboats bobbing nearby. Both were created by US presidents and […]
Person buys customized, game-worn Nike Air Jordan I for record $55K
A person got quite the impressive addition to his shoe collection on Sunday. An unnamed buyer bought a pair of customized, game-worn Nike Air Jordan I sneakers at an auction in Dallas, Texas for $55,000 — the highest price ever paid for this shoe’s particular style. Michael Jordan wore the shoes after returning from an […]
Tiny drawing by Donald Trump fetches $16,000 at celebrity art auction
President Trump now appears to be among the nation’s “celebrity artists.” A small, stark sketch he once made of the Empire State Building in 1994 sold for $16,000 on Thursday night, part of an auction of art objects in Los Angeles that was not without drama. “A packed audience of collectors and bidders were live […]