Titanic Artifacts to be Auctioned as Single Lot

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Guernsey's auction house will be offering salvage rights along with 5,500 recovered artifacts from the Titanic.  The unique aspect of the auction is, based upon a court ruling, all artifacts and future salvage rights will be auctioned as one lot.  The asking price is $190 million.  Past prices for Titanic salvage have ranged from $200 to $100,000.

The auction closes on April 11th.  I will  post the results when released.

The WSJ reports

Within the field of marine memorabilia, Titanic-related objects have long topped collectors' wish lists, with pieces selling for anywhere from $200 for a ship postcard to $100,000 for an original menu. A few works were carried off the ship by survivors or collected by rescue ships. Since the artifacts in the Guernsey's sale were recovered by divers working for the site's official overseer, they've never been traded in the marketplace before.

Mr. Joslyn said he knows a dozen collectors who can spend "serious money" on Titanic memorabilia, but he doesn't think any of them can spend close to Guernsey's $190 million asking price for the entire group. He said the auction house is likely seeking bidders among the world's billionaires in the hope that someone will buy the Titanic and give it to an institution like the Smithsonian. "It's not like buying a Monet to hang on your walls," he added. "You're going to need a major warehouse and staff to care for it all."

Potential bidders have until Friday to place their bids, and Guernsey's will announce a winner around April 11.

Source: The Wall Street Journal 

Knoedler Sued Again

The NY Times is reporting that Knoedler Gallery in New York City is being sued again.  For past references click HERE and HERE.  This time the suit is based upon the 2004 purchase from Knoedler of  Mark Rothko painting by a collector for $8.3 million.  The suit is asking for $25 million.  According to the article a forensic analysis of the painting reveals several inconsistencies.

The NY Times reports

It is the second multimillion-dollar civil suit involving a painting believed to be forged that buyers have brought against Knoedler since the gallery abruptly closed four months ago.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating at least two dozen paintings supplied by a Long Island dealer named Glafira Rosales and sold by Knoedler and another New York dealer. The works are attributed to Modernist masters like Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and others, but several experts have called them forgeries. One, purportedly by Robert Motherwell, has been branded a forgery in a court settlement.

According to the new lawsuit, Domenico and Eleanore De Sole bought a Rothko painting, “Untitled 1956,” in 2004 for $8.3 million from Knoedler’s former president, Ann Freedman. A forensic analysis of the painting commissioned by the De Soles found that some of the materials and markings were “inconsistent and irreconcilable with the claim” that the painting was done by Rothko, according to the suit, which also names Ms. Freedman as a defendant.

The De Soles contend that Ms. Freedman misled them about whether “Untitled 1956” was going to be included in the definitive compendium of Rothko’s work known as the catalogue raisonné, and that she gave them a written assurance that several experts, including Rothko’s son, Christopher, had authenticated the painting when they had only briefly viewed it.

Source: NY Times

Chinese Collectors Continue to Default

I am not sure if it is buyers remorse or not, but Bloomberg is running an article again on Chinese collectors failing to pay for items purchased at auction.  According to the article some Jade purchased at auction in France is now being re-offered as the Chinese buyers failed to pay or only partially paid.

To combat the failure to pay auction houses have been asking for deposits on top lots (although in the Chinese art market it is hard to tell would could be a top lot based upon the estimate and the selling price), suing for non payment, and in some cases releasing the names of the offenders.  Sotheby's has seen 19 lots, totaling $22 million fail to close between 2008 and 2011.  They are now suing many collectors to collect, for hammer price, buyer’s premium, interest and costs.

The article also has a quote from fellow appraiser Victor Wiener.

Bloomberg reports

Sotheby’s (BID) introduced a requirement last April that bidders on premium lots (the definition varies) must pay a deposit of HK$1 million ($128,791) to participate.

Public records don’t necessarily show all the twists and turns of the auction business. The prices for some disputed works in Sotheby’s lawsuits are listed on Artnet.com, the widely used database, as if the transactions have been completed.

“People accept it as fact and trade on this info,” said Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, a New York-based art appraiser.

Sotheby’s filed a lawsuit seeking payment for “Self Portrait in the Yellow Mountains,” an ink scroll by 20th- century master Zhang Daqian, which fetched HK$46.6 million and was the top lot of its sale on Oct. 4, 2011. Another writ was for a 1968 abstract painting by Zao Wou-Ki which fetched $8.9 million the day before. The price is listed as the auction record for the artist on Artnet.

Disputed Lots

Sotheby’s in all disputed lots was seeking the hammer price, buyer’s premium, interest and costs. Efforts to reach the buyers for comment, through Sotheby’s, its lawyers and the China offices of Bloomberg were unsuccessful.

“The court of last resort is, literally, the courtroom,” said Victor Wiener, a New York-based art appraiser who has served as a witness in cases involving art sold at auction.

“It’s an international problem,” London-based dealer Roger Keverne said. “Some Chinese dealers are trying to sell things before they pay for them. We don’t know the full extent of it. The concern is that they can also be the under bidders. They push prices up. It isn’t a genuine market.”

Source: Bloomberg

Collecting Musical Instruments

The Financial Times recently published an article on the growing interest in collecting and investing in musical instruments.  The article states many of the investors in high end string instruments are the Chinese. It also mentions that individuals collect as well as investment syndicates.

The FT reports

Why collect old fiddles? For those who want to see their money grow, the example of the “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius violin – sold for $15.9m by the Nippon Foundation last year to raise money for tsunami victims – shows what the world’s most perfectly preserved specimens can fetch at auction. Tim Ingles, Sotheby’s head of musical instruments, says that fine period instruments can double their value in ten years, and, with the online auction house Tarisio making the running, the market is buoyant.

And there’s something wonderfully timeless about a violin. As Ingles puts it: “Violin-making is the only branch of engineering to have made no progress over the last three centuries.” Moreover, damaged instruments are relatively easy to repair.

David Rattray, who as the Royal Academy of Music’s luthier (repairer and violin maker) looks after shoals of Strads and other rarities, is aware of the divide between those who love old instruments for themselves, and those who just want to stick them in a vault. With help from Ingles and other sympathetic auctioneers and dealers, Rattray has been assisting at the birth of a collection reflecting a philanthropic musical impulse. The Royal Academy is about to announce that the Becket Collection of period instruments has been donated to the institution – for use by its students – by the collection’s tireless begetter Elise Becket Smith.

Over the past few years, this cello-playing US-born enthusiast has spent her family inheritance acquiring dozens of fine British instruments from the 18th and early 19th centuries. It’s a collection whose sound when played as a consort has a lovely transparency.

Source: The Financial Times

7 Pieces of Furniture Nearing Extinction

As I usually do each morning, I was jumping from website to website looking at local and national news, sports and tech.  The AOL's the Stylist had an interesting heading which caught my attention, Decorating Trends: 7 Furniture Pieces and Home Accessories That are Going Extinct. The article reveals the changing tastes and changing lifestyles which are having an effect on collecting and decorating.

The 7 pieces include the coffee table, love seat, sideboard, night stand, full sized bed, landline phone and tablecloths.

The Stylist reports

It started with coffee tables. I had been working on a design project for a friend of mine, who was adamant that there would be no coffee table in her living room. Instead, she wanted a low ottoman.

'But where would you put your coffee?' I asked.

'Like I drink coffee at a coffee table anyway,' she said.

She had a point. Whenever I came over her house, we ended up gravitating towards the kitchen, which had a little breakfast nook perfect for sitting and, well, catching up. The living room was more of a glorified pass-through, a place that never saw guests for more than ten minutes. Why clutter it up with a coffee table, when you could have a versatile ottoman, which would be used as seating? (And if she did need it as a surface for that infrequent cup of coffee, she could just top it with a tray.)

A few weeks later, I happened to notice that coffee tables are a rarity in my friends' apartments. Instead, there are small side tables, cocktail tables or trunks that multitasked as storage. This could be more indicative of the compromises one makes when faced with limited square footage. But I've also noticed that many furniture stores have limited options for coffee tables in general -- so maybe we're onto something.

In light of the possible extinction of the coffee table, I've rounded up a few other home items that seem to be on their way out. Whether it's for space reasons (again, coffee table) or for changing habits, they're becoming rarer and rarer these days. So flip through the slideshow and let us know if you agree...or disagree.

Source: The Styleist

Asia Week in Review

Bloomberg posted a quick review of the 15 Asia week sales spread out amongst Sotheby's, Christie's,Doyle and Bonhams.  Overall, the sales totaled $140.4 million.  The Bloomberg report touches on the highlights of each of the major houses sale as well as some of the misses.

Bloomberg reports

Sotheby’s

In a quiet Sotheby’s salesroom filled with Chinese bidders, a group of eight calligraphy scripts by the 12th and 13th- century Southern Song emperors surged to $5.7 million, the highest price of the week and more than five times the lot’s high estimate of $1 million.

Two Qianlong-era revolving Famille-Rose porcelain brush- pots, depicting heaven and earth, tallied $3.5 million. One was estimated at $120,000 to $150,000 and soared to $1.9 million. The other had an $80,000-$120,000 estimate and sold for $1.5 million.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art helped push the price for an album featuring 17th century ink drawings of Yellow Mountain, “Eight Views of Huangshan,” to $2.3 million, about 10 times the presale estimate.

Christie’s

A 13th-century Nepalese gilt bronze figure of Padmapani, a Buddhist divinity, soared to $2.5 million at Christie’s, more than its presale estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. The work came from the collection of art dealer Doris Wiener.
A silvery bronze Tang dynasty (618-907) mirror from the collection of Robert H. Ellsworth fetched $482,500, three times the high estimate. It was one of 70 bronze mirrors consigned by Ellsworth, a major Asian art collector and dealer, who began buying them more than 60 years ago.

Bonhams

A dazzling 1808 harem scene by Indian artist Bagta, purchased for $125 in 1991, fetched $302,500 at Bonhams, 10 times the low estimate of $30,000. The signed miniature was previously unrecorded. Bagta’s work was recently on display at the Met’s “Wonder of the Age, Master Painters of India, 1100- 1900” exhibition.

Doyle

A 17th-century Chinese bronze cannon sold for $362,500 at Doyle, falling short of low estimate of $400,000 despite its provenance. Commissioned by Emperor Kangxi and dated 1695, the cannon was captured during the Boxer Rebellion and brought to the U.S. by Colonel Webb C. Hayes, son of President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Casualties

One of the biggest disappointments at Christie’s was a 16th-century gilt-bronze Buddha statue which weighed almost a ton and was estimated to bring $2 million to $3 million. It found no buyers.
At Sotheby’s, a 1958 painting by Syed Haider Raza, “Village with Church,” which once belonged to John D. Rockefeller III and his wife, Blanchette, also flopped. It had a presale estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

Source:  Bloomberg

Family Art Collections

The Wall Street Journal ran a good article in early March about how families should or can deal with passing art collections along to the next generation.  As appraisers we work with many families look for assistance with equitable distribution and also assistance in liquidating art collections and personal property when heirs are not interested in further ownership.

Fellow appraiser Xiliary Twill of the Art Asset Management group forwarded the article to me.  It is a good article for all appraiser to read and take into consideration as it touches on how much of the collection to pass on, if wanted, placing the collection in a trust, and reducing the chances of fighting over the collection.

Overall a good article for the appraiser.

The Wall Street Journal reports

So, how should families fortunate enough to have valuable collections decide what to do with their art or other objects? Here are some options.

Leave your kids a token. The first step is to ask, "Is the next generation even going to want this artwork?" says Mary Schmidt, an estate-planning attorney in Boston.

If so, are they going to want it all? She had a client who acquired dozens of signed prints by Renoir and Miró, among others, over several decades. The collection was so large that she rotated it seasonally in her home, storing the rest and spending a small fortune to insure it, Ms. Schmidt says.

After two years of deliberation, the family matriarch and collector, then in her 90s, decided that leaving all of her art to her kids would be too much—they had no space for it all, and she had other assets to leave them, Ms. Schmidt says. So she let each of her three children pick one work after her death and donated the rest to charity.

What if one child chooses a print worth $1,000, and another chooses one worth $100,000? The executor had everything appraised, and the disparities were offset by cash from the rest of the estate.

You can specify who will receive designated items of "tangible property," including works of art, in your will, says Linda Hirschson, a shareholder at law firm Greenberg Traurig in New York. But be careful: In some states, including New York, those instructions must be in the will itself and not in a separate memo to be legally enforceable.

Keep the collection intact. There are situations in which it makes sense to sell or donate an entire art collection—such as when its value would be diminished by breaking it up.

Ms. Hirschson worked with an estate in which a couple, both of whom lived to be around 100 years old, had amassed a collection of Audubon prints that was sold intact. That was what they wanted, as it was one of the largest collections in the world, she says.

Put the art in a trust. If you want to get the art to your kids but also get it out of your estate, consider using a trust.

Mr. Graber has adapted a strategy used more commonly with real estate: putting the property in an irrevocable "grantor" trust, and naming the children as its beneficiaries. The artwork is pooled together in a limited liability company that is then sold to the trust. Then the parents lease it back for their own use.

Say the artwork is appraised for $1 million, and then it appreciates in value inside the trust. The appreciated value then would belong to the heirs—and the work would be out of the estate.

The strategy hasn't been legally tested, Mr. Graber cautions, and he has applied it only a few times to artwork. It has passed muster with the Internal Revenue Service when used with real estate, he says, as long as "the sales price was reasonable and the rental rate was at fair-market value." (In some places, sales tax may be owed on the sale of the art to the trust.)

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Christie's Asia Week Results

Christie's is reporting the total for their  seven Asia week sales was $69 million.

The sales, results and top lots are as follows:

• THE DORIS WIENER COLLECTION,

 $12,796,43,93% by lot/96% by $

Top Lot: Lot 92 An important gilt bronze figure of Padmapani Nepal, 13th CenturyEstimate: $250,000 – 350,000  Price realized: $2,490,500

• INDIAN AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN ART

$6,329,750 63% by lot/76% by $

Top Lot: Lot 836 An Important Buff Sandstone Torso Of Uma Khmer, Angkor Period, Pre-Rup, 10th Century Estimate: $350,000 – 450,000 Price realized: $1,142,500

• JAPANESE & KOREAN ART

$1,730,875 61% by lot/36% by $

Top Lot: Lot 974 An Iron-Oxide And Slip-Decorated Earthenware Incense Burner, Kenzan ware, Edo period dated Shotoku kinoto-bi toshi (1715) Estimate: $150,000 - 200,000 Price realized: $194,500

• SOUTH ASIAN MODERN + CONTEMPORARY ART

$7,782,250 69% by lot/82% by $

Top Lot: Lot 529 Tyeb Mehta, Untitled (Figures with Bull Head),  oil on canvas, painted in 1984 Estimate: $1,500,000 – 2,000,000 Price realized: $1,762,500

• AUSPICIOUS TREASURES FOR  SCHOLARS AND EMPERORS SELECTIONS FROM THE ROBERT H. BLUMENFIELD COLLECTION 

$6,467,600 64% by lot/75% by $

Top Lot: Lot 1249 An Extremely Rare Yixing Lotus Petal-Form Water Vessel, Signed Chen Mingyuan Estimate: $200,000 - 300,000 Price Realized: $506,500

• LUMINOUS PERFECTION: FINE CHINESE MIRRORS FROM THE ROBERT H. ELLSWORTH COLLECTION

$2,174,375 89% by lot/96% by $

Top Lot:
Lot 1462 A Magnificent And Very Rare Silvery Bronze Octalobed Mirror With Cranes Tang Dynasty (618-907) Estimate: $100,000 - 150,000 Price Realized: $482,500

• FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART

$31,356,875 72% by lot/78% by $

Top Lot: Lot 1746 A Fine and Rare Large Huanghuali Painting Table, Hua'an 17th Century Estimate: $400,000 - 600,000 Price Realized: $1,202,500

Christie's reported on the sale

Jonathan Stone, Chairman and International Head, Asian Art, said: “Christie's drove the Asia Week market in New York.  Led by distinguished single owner collections, including The Doris Wiener Collection, Luminous Perfection: Fine Chinese Mirrors from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection, and Auspicious Treasures for Scholars and Emperors: Selections from the Robert H. Blumenfield Collection, the week achieved an overall total of $69 million, which demonstrated our preeminence in this field.”

Source: Christie's

Scholarships for Appraisers

The Foundation for Appraisal Education has announced its available scholarships for 2012. The Foundation is offering three scholarships this year, including $1,000 for a new appraiser, $1,000 for an experienced appraiser and $1,500 to an individual under the age of 30, for use in attending college level courses, seminars or specialty training in fine and/or decorative arts.

I have been a long time supporter of the Foundation for Appraisal Education, and have worked with them for years as the editor of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies (2012 edition coming soon).  The proceeds from the Journal help support the educational initiatives of the Foundation.

I encourage appraisers and fine and decorative arts scholars to take advantage of the scholarship offers. Click HERE for more information on the FAE scholarship programs.

The FAE reports from a press release about the 2012 scholarships

The Foundation for Appraisal Education is pleased to announce the establishment of a new 2012 scholarship in the area of fine and decorative arts. In alliance with the scholarship sponsor, Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd., the Foundation will be offering the Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd. Scholarship in Fine and Decorative Arts for the first time in 2012. This $1,500 scholarship will be awarded to an individual applicant under the age of 30, attending college level courses, seminars or specialty training in fine and decorative arts.

A non-profit organization, The Foundation for Appraisal Education promotes the advancement of education related to the field of personal property appraising, and it assists individuals through scholarships for educational development to improve their capabilities by attending courses, classes, workshops and conferences. One of their key initiatives is the awarding of educational scholarships annually to aid those seeking to improve their knowledge in the field of personal property.

"We are enthusiastic about our new partnership with Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd.," said Beth Szescila, President of the Foundation. "Their innovative approach to promoting fine and decorative arts education among young adults will foster training and development of future appraisers and other professionals in the field. The sponsorship of this scholarship is an indication of their strong commitment to the field of fine and decorative arts and its future. We are grateful for their financial support and focus on education."

Established by Leland Little in 1998, Leland Little Auction & Estate Sales, Ltd. is located in Hillsborough, North Carolina and specializes in the auctioning of quality estate objects. They have achieved national prominence through their specialties, including their Fine Art, Decorative Arts, Fine Jewelry, Furniture, Historical Documents, Coins, Militaria and Fine Wine Departments. Their Asian Art Department is nationally renowned with dramatic growth during the past two years with both domestic and international clients.

In regards to the scholarship, firm president Leland Little commented "We are honored to be able to provide this opportunity for a young adult to pursue fine and decorative arts training, as it is important to encourage and support young adults entering the professional careers of appraisers, auctioneers, and curators." Individuals under the age of 30 may apply through the Foundation's defined application process. Students, appraisers, auctioneers, museum curators, or any individual wanting to further their educational development in the area of fine and decorative arts personal property may apply for the scholarship. According to Foundation Treasurer Vicky Nash Shaw, "this scholarship is the largest single scholarship ever awarded by the Foundation for Appraisal Education."

Scholarships are awarded to cover the costs for tuition of courses, classes, workshops, programs or conferences and do not include travel, hotel or other associated expenses.

Applications for this scholarship will be accepted through June 30th of this year, and detailed information and applications can be found on the website for the Foundation for Appraisal Education: http://www.foundationforappraisaleducation.org or by contacting Diane Marvin, Vice President and Scholarship director, at dmappraise@aol.com. Leland Little Auction and Estate Sales, Ltd. can be contacted through its website: http://www.llauctions.com.

The Foundation for Appraisal Education offers two additional scholarships in the field of appraising personal property; one is for experienced and one for new appraisers. Information on those scholarships may be found on the same website and the application deadline is May 31st. The Foundation also promotes appraisal education through an annual publication, The Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies. The 2012 issue will be released in April and further information will be forthcoming on the Foundation's website.

Funding for all of these programs comes from donations, gifts and memorials from groups and individuals, as well as from corporate donations and sponsorships. Donations are tax deductible and may be made directly to the Foundation or through their website.

For more information on this release, please contact Vicky Nash Shaw, Treasurer for the Foundation for Appraisal Education at 312 924-1832.

Results: Christie's Doris Wiener Collection

The results keep rolling in from the various sales at Asia week in NYC and beyond.  Today we focus on the single owner sale of the Doris Wiener collection held at Christie's Rockefeller Center. The included an assortment of classical Indian and Southeast Asian art.

The single owner sale offered a total of 374 lots with 346 selling for a strong 93% sell through rate. The sale totaled $12.79 million, and sold an also strong 96% by value. The top selling lot was an important gilt bronze figure of Padmapani, Nepal, 13th Century which sold for $2.49 million against a pre sale estimate of $250k to $350k (see image). Of the top ten selling lots 5 were noted as anonymous, 2 as European private, 2 as US private and 1 as Asian private.

I will post the consolidate Asia sales results from the major houses when they are published.

Christie's reported on the sale.

Hugo Weihe, International Director, International Specialist, Head of Indian and Southeast Asian Art, comments: “The sale of The Doris Wiener Collection marked a milestone for the field.  Realizing nearly $12.8 million, this is the highest total ever achieved for a single owner collection of classical Indian and Southeast Asian Art at Christie’s.  The collection included an outstanding group of exceptionally rare and beautiful works- a testament to Ms. Wiener’s discerning eye as a doyen in the field.   Many star lots of the sale performed significantly above their pre-sale estimates, especially the important gilt bronze figure of Padmapani and the important bronze group of Somaskanda, reflecting a market that honors quality and provenance.  We were delighted to see wide international participation by buyers in the room, on the phone, and on Christie's LIVE™.  

Source: Christie's 

Results: Sotheby's Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art

As Asia week rolls on in New York City the results are now starting to come in, and so far look strong.  The results posted today are from the Sotheby's Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Sale, which is only one of many sales being conducted this week in and around NYC. When the consolidated reports come out for each auction house I will also post those results, as it gives a good indication for the market sector.

The sale offered 318 lots with 224 selling for a acceptable 70.4% buy through rate.  I say the buy through rate is only acceptable as in the past we have seen many Chinese/Asia sales with an over 85% - 90% buy through percentages.  The sale totaled $20.71 million.  The sale sold 82.3% by value, indicated the lots which did sell, sold very well.  The pre sale high estimate was $16.8 million, so even with a 30% buy-in rate, the selling lots performed extremely well.

The top selling lot was a Famille Rose brushpot with aQianlong seal mark, making $1.97 million against a pre sale estimate of $120,000 to $150,000.  The second highest selling lot was a similar Qianlong brushpot, selling for $1.54 million against an estimate of $80k to $120k.  One sold to an Asian trade dealer and the other a private Asian collector. (see image for the two pieces)

The Asian market remains strong, and I really have to credit the auction house specialist who have to work with Chinese works, as it is so hard to determine a fair estimate in today's market.

The top ten lots broken down as follows, 4 to Asian Trade, 4 to Asian Private, one to the trade and one as anonymous.  A strong representation from dealers at this sale, even with the high realized prices, although they could be bidding for clients.

 Sotheby's reported on the sale

Today at Sotheby’s the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Sale brought the outstanding total of $20,709,776, significantly exceeding the pre-sale high estimate of $16.8 million. The auction was led by two  Extremely Rare Famille Rose ‘Heaven  and Earth’ Revolving Brushpots, with Qianlong seal marks and dated to the period (ests. $120/150,000 and $80/120,000) which brought a combined total of $3.5 million. There were also exceptional prices for jades, archaic bronzes, furniture, and furniture among other areas of the sale which was over 70% sold.

Henry Howard-Sneyd, Vice Chairman, Asian Art and one of today’s auctioneers commented: “Today’s outstanding total of $20.7 million showed that collectors are prepared to fight for objects with rarity and good provenance when offered at conservative estimates. Two Revolving Brushpots from the Qianlong period led the sale bringing a combined total of $3.5 million, many multiples of the high estimates. These astonishing pieces are the product of ingenious design and almost miraculous craftsmanship.”

The revolving brushpots came from a Massachusetts private collection and were each just 4¾ inches high. Bidding was ferocious on both pieces, with collectors making extraordinary leaps. At one stage, the auctioneer asked for a bid from the room and was offered $100,000, immediately to be trumped by a Sotheby’s specialist bidding for a client by phone yelled out $1 million.  The brushpots eventually sold for $1,986,500 (est. $120/150,000) and $ 1,538,500 (est. $80/120,000).  Among the first lots to come up for sale in today’s auction was a group of archaic bronzes, which was led by A Rare Archaic Bronze ‘Double Owl’ Ritual Food Vessel (You), Shang Dynasty, 12th century BC. The double-owl you saw competition from bidders both in the saleroom and on the telephones, finally selling to a buyer for $1,258,500, more than tripling pre-sale low expectations (est. $400/600,000). The work represents an interesting final step on the evolutionary ladder of this intriguing form.

The second lot in the auction, and another highlight of this group, was an Archaic Bronze Ritual Food Vessel (Liding) Shang Dynasty, which sold for $254,500, more than  four times its high estimate (est. $40/60,000).

Highlighting the Jade section in the auction, an mperially Inscribed Finely Carved Spinach Jade Brushpot, Qianlong Period, dated to 1795, which sold for a remarkable $1,426,500, six times its pre-sale low estimate after it was sought by at least five bidders (est. $200/300,000). Carved from a solid piece of jade, the rim of this superb brushpot is inscribed with a poem composed by the Qianlong emperor and exemplifies the zenith of pictorial jade working achieved by craftsmen during his reign.

Further works in Jade that performed exceptionally well and far surpassed pre-sale expectations was an 18th century Fine White Jade Teapot and Cover, Qing Dynasty, which brought $572,500 against an estimate of $30/40,000, and an  18th century Qing Dynasty Large White Jade Ruyi Scepter, which brought $542,500, above an estimate of $150/200,000.

Furniture was also highly sought after with A Fine Huanghuali Yokeback Armchair (Sichutou Guanmaoyi) Ming Dynasty. 17th Century selling for $542,500, comfortably exceeding the high estimate (est. $300/400,000). A Fine And Rare Huanghuali Compound Cabinet (Dingxiang Gui), 17th Century also surpassed the high estimate to fetch $512,500 (est. $250/400,000).

Source: Sotheby's 

More Issues for th Wildensteins

Fellow appraiser Louise Allrich, ASA send me an interesting article on the problems and issue of the Wildensteins, the dynastic French gallery family.  The article is about a criminal complaint against the Wildensteins about a work by Monet which may have been seized by the Nazi's during World Was II.  The past owners family is now claiming the Wildensteins new the missing painting was looted by the Nazi's and they know of its whereabouts.

I have posted on some of the problems the Wildensteins have had in the past, (Click HERE to read previous posts), and it seems the trouble just continues to grow with allegations of possible connections to Nazi looted art.

Again another intriguing art story.  Most of these stories of international art intrigue are better than fiction.

The NY Times reports

Last summer, after Ms. Moulin filed a criminal complaint against the Wildensteins, the French authorities ordered a preliminary investigation. An anti-art-trafficking squad is sifting through World War II documents to pick up the trail of the work, “Torrent de la Creuse,” Monet’s 1889 study of the confluence of the Creuse and the Petite Creuse Rivers.

“It’s not a question of the price of the painting,” Ms. Moulin said in an interview here in her art-filled apartment. “It’s a question of a victory against the Germans and. ...” Her voice trailed off.

The Wildensteins, who have been selling art for five generations, have steadfastly denied any knowledge of the painting’s whereabouts. But Daniel Wildenstein, an Impressionist scholar who died in 2001, included it in two of his widely embraced inventories of Monet’s work. In both he listed it as being in a private collection: an anonymous owner in the first reference and an unidentified American owner in 1996.

The suspicions of Ms. Moulin and her family were aroused last year when more than 30 artworks that had been reported missing or stolen were found in a vault at the Wildenstein Institute, a nonprofit research organization the Wildensteins run from a mansion on the Right Bank. The items, most of which had vanished years earlier during the settlement of estates, were recovered in an unrelated investigation.

But members of one Jewish family told the police that they believed a sculpture of theirs recovered from the vault could have been looted by the Nazis because it appeared on no postwar estate lists.

Guy Wildenstein, the billionaire who leads the family business from New York, declined through his lawyers to comment on Ms. Moulin’s accusations. But he has contended that the institute never hid missing works, saying it simply lacked a full inventory of what was in its vault.

Lawyers for Mr. Wildenstein, who is Jewish, have strenuously denied that any of the seized items were Nazi loot.

Source: NY Times

Asia Week NY Expectations

Bloomberg has a good and quick preview with highlights and expectations on some of the many sales and items being offered over the next few days at Asian Week in New York City.

Bloomberg reports

March 19

A Chinese bronze cannon parked at Doyle: $400,000 to $600,000.

Commissioned by Emperor Kangxi and dated 1695, the cannon was captured during the Boxer Rebellion and brought to the U.S. by Colonel Webb C. Hayes, son of President Rutherford B. Hayes. It’s in Doyle’s Asian Works of Art sale.

An 1808 harem scene by Indian artist Bagta: $30,000 to $50,000.

This stand-out painting is rich in gold leaf and vibrant natural pigments with precise brushwork down to the tiny jewels on the courtesans’ robes. It’s in the Bonhams Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art auction.

Syed Haider Raza’s “Village with Church”: $1.5-$2.5 million.

John D. Rockefeller III and his wife, Blanchette, were the original owners of the Indian artist’s 1958 painting, which sold for about $4,000 in 1994 and will lead Sotheby’s auction of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art.

March 20

Qianlong porcelain brush-pot: $120,000 to $150,000.

This is one of two with dazzling turquoise interior (the other’s estimate is $80,000 to $120,000) from the era of China’s acquisitive 18th-century emperor. They will be offered in Sotheby’s sale of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art.
Chinese snuff bottles: $600 to $35,000.

The perennial Chinoiserie objet comes in myriad porcelain, jade, amber, volcanic rock, ivory and lacquer forms in the Fine Chinese Snuff Bottles sale at Bonhams, with one resembling an eggplant the size of a pinky.

Japanese sword guards: $800 to $5,000.

These date from the 16th to the 19th century, feature attractive carvings and rich symbolism and appear in the Bonhams Fine Japanese Works of Art auction.

March 21

An 11th-century carved sandstone figure: $250,000 to $350,000.

The piece depicts a woman deity named Salabhanjika reaching to pick a mango from a fruit-laden tree. It stars in Christie’s (CHRS) Indian and Southeast Asian Art sale.

March 22
A massive 16th-century Buddha statue: $2-$3 million.

Weighing almost a ton, this gilt-bronze, robed and crowned deity heads to the auction block at Christie’s during the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale.

A 1946 Qi Baishi ink scroll: $1.2-$1.5 million.

The auction world’s most expensive Chinese artist (1864- 1957) depicted an eagle perched on a pine branch in a work Sotheby’s will offer at its Fine Classical Chinese Paintings sale.

Carved Qianlong stone box: $300,000 to $500,000.

This small work, not quite 3 inches long, depicts two bunnies amid flowers, rocks and bamboo, where they await the fortunate bidder at Christie’s Auspicious Treasures for Scholars and Emperors sale.

Source: Bloomberg 

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TEFAF Art Market Report

Although the full annual TEFAF Art Market Report by Dr Clare McAndrew has yet to be fully published, or at least the TEFAF site has not updated the links to download.  There is some good information on the TEFAF site about the results of the report.  The main emphasis seems to be on China becoming the largest world market for and and antiques.

I reported this news from Art Price several weeks ago on the AW Blog (Click Here to read). The McAndrew report data has some interesting data and statistics for the art market as it relates to China, and other world markets.  Including the modern/contemporary art sector represented 70% of the total value of the art market sales in 2011, overall art market sales increased 7% in 2011 and the art market has double in the past 25 years.  All very good content to include in an appraisal market report.

The TEFAF Blog reports on the 2011 world art market.

China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest market for art and antiques ending decades of American domination. This historic turning point, which is also an important indicator of seismic shifts in the wider global economy, is revealed in a new report published on Friday 16 March 2012. The International Art Market in 2011: Observations on the Art Trade over 25 Years has been commissioned by TEFAF  Maastricht, the world’s best art and antiques fair.

China’s share of the global art market rose from 23% in 2010 to 30% last year, pushing the United States, with 29%, into second place. The report, compiled by Dr Clare McAndrew, a cultural economist specialising in the fine and decorative art market and founder of Arts Economics, called the development “perhaps one of the most fundamental and important changes in the last 50 years”. The United Kingdom, which was overtaken by China in 2010, remained third with a 22% market share while France was a distant fourth with 6%.

The powerful surge by China combined with a rise in fine art sales, particularly in the Modern and Contemporary sectors, led to a continuing strengthening in the art and antiques market worldwide. Sales in 2011 rose by 7% to €46.1 billion, an increase of 63% from the market crisis of 2009. Although not quite back to its 2007 pre-recession high of €48.1 billion, the market has staged a significant recovery over the past two years.

The principal findings of the report, the first TEFAF study of the market to be translated into Chinese, are:

∎ China overtook the US for the first time in 2011 to become the largest art and antiques market worldwide with a share of 30% based on both auction and dealer sales.

∎ The US share dropped by 5 percentage points to 29% while the combined total for the 27 European Union countries was also down by 3 percentage points to 34%. Among the EU nations, the largest markets were the UK with 22% of the global total and France with 6%, both unchanged.

∎ The Chinese art and antiques auction sector was the strongest growing market worldwide with a dramatic rise of 177% in 2010 and a further 64% in 2011.

∎ The global art market continued to recover in 2011, increasing by 7% to €46.1 billion, an increase of 63% since the market crisis of 2009. The volume of transactions also increased by 5% to 36.8 million.

∎ The driving forces behind the recovery were strong sales in the Chinese auction market and the rise of fine art sales (over decorative art).

∎ The Modern and Contemporary sectors combined to account for nearly 70% of the fine art market. Both continued a strong recovery in 2011, leading them to levels in excess of the boom of 2007-2008.

∎ The art market took nearly a decade to recover from the recession of the 1990s whereas the contraction in 2009 has been relatively short-lived. This is due, in part, to its increasingly global nature.

∎ The art market has more than doubled in size in the 25 years since TEFAF Maastricht was founded and grew over 575% from its lowest point in 1991 (just under US$10 billion) to its highest in 2007 (US$66 billion/€48.1 billion).

“Apart from its rapid increase in size, the last decade has witnessed significant changes in the art market’s geographical distribution of sales,” writes Dr McAndrew in the report. “The next decade will be the first period when emerging market countries contribute more to global economic growth than developed ones.”

“The dominance of the Chinese market has been driven by expanding wealth, strong domestic supply and the investive drive of Chinese art buyers. Although recent economic turmoil has created a more cautious buying climate in the rest of the world, growing domestic difficulties in Chinese property and stock markets and the lack of other alternatives appear to have led to a significant amount of substitution into art as an investment by Chinese consumers.”

“However all regions will be facing challenges in 2012 and beyond: the Chinese art market in how to cope with an overheated market and promote more stable, long-term growth; Europe, with how to maintain its competitiveness in the face of continued regulatory and cost burdens: and the US, with the challenge of losing its supremacy during the recent past as the centre for demand and supply in the market.”

Source: TEFAF Blog

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TEFAF - The European Fine Art Fair

The Art Newspaper has a good section on the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) now displaying in Maastricht.  The website has a special page set up for the fair at http://www.theartnewspaper.com/special/maastricht which includes info on old and new dealers, museum exhibitions and special events.

The site also has a beginners guide to the show.  Overall, the site is well worth taking some time and exploring the various articles and details about this art fair.

Early sales reports from the fair have been very positive, including the sale of a Henry VIII portrait (see image) selling for around $3.9 million to a European collector (reported by the Antiques Trade Gazette).The art fair runs through March 25th.

From the Beginners Guide on the Art Newspaper website

The European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) brings together a huge array of works, from classical antiquities to contemporary art, with everything from jewellery to armour and antique wallpaper in between. The Art Newspaper spoke to scholars, dealers and auction experts—as well as members of each vetting committee—to produce a brief, introductory guide to some of the key objects and fields you will find under Tefaf’s roof.

OLD MASTER PAINTINGS

Key objects

Pentecost, a perfectly preserved late 15th-century panel by the Bruges Master of the Baroncelli Portraits (with the dealer Jean-Luc Baroni). A Vase of Flowers in a Window, With a Distant Landscape Beyond, Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621). A rare oil-on-copper work by one of the leading painters of Dutch floral still-lifes (with the dealer Johnny Van Haeften)

What you need to know

Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings have been a feature of Tefaf Maastricht since the fair’s inception 25 years ago. The most fecund of these artists, notably the landscapist Jan van Goyen and the genre painters Adriaen van Ostade and David Teniers the Younger, can often be found in multiple examples sprinkled through the booths, as can the bumptious peasants of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, himself a Tefaf institution. Art historians may sniff, but Pieter the Younger’s cheerful copies of his father’s inventions are perhaps the most popular and expensive 17th-century northern Old Master paintings after Rembrandt, particularly with Belgian and German collectors who are loyal visitors to the fair.

The artist’s enduring popularity can be attested by the sale of The Battle between Carnival and Lent, a copy of his father’s painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which set a record for the artist, going for £6.9m at Christie’s, London, last July. There is a good chance it may resurface at Tefaf.

Source: The Art Newspaper

Degas Ballerina Investigation

Fellow art educator Will Paulson sent me a very interesting article on the circumstances surrounding an high value estate, a Dega ballerina and its disposition.  There are claims of it being purchased by one of the founders of H and R Block, as well as being stolen. The ownership history is long and complicated and involves many, including collectors, auction houses, galleries, and of course the FBI.

Definetly a situation with multiple points of view, and certainly an interesting tale of ownership.

The circumstances in which the Degas ballerina disappeared from Clark’s Fifth Avenue apartments in the early 1990s remain unclear, but for the first time the story can be told of how it ended up in Bloch’s living room, above the sofa, between a Seurat and a Toulouse-Lautrec. And how Bloch was allowed to keep the painting even after the FBI came calling.

When it was discovered in 2005 that Bloch and his wife had purchased a painting with a tainted past, a quiet dispute over its ownership erupted. It had been taken from Clark's apartment, but it also had been bought in good faith by the Blochs.

Valuing her privacy more than her possessions, Clark had told her attorney and the FBI in 1992 not to pursue the loss of the painting. She didn't list it on the international registry of stolen art. As a result, in a high-stakes legal version of the children's rhyme "finder's keepers, loser's weepers," she may have lost her claim to the painting. The Blochs' attorney argued that it now belonged to them.

After well-mannered wrangling, Clark and Bloch reached a deal. Clark agreed to donate the painting to an art museum in Kansas City, Mo., the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where Bloch had been a longtime trustee, chairman and benefactor, and where he and his wife had promised to donate all their art when they died. As part of the agreement, the heiress, not America's Tax Man, got the income tax deduction for the gift.To seal the deal, the ballerina needed to change hands. In October 2008, on a clear but crisp Monday at the Bloch home in Mission Hills, Kansas, a Bloch representative handed the ballerina in the gilded frame to Clark's attorney, who walked out to the car and handed it to a representative of the museum, who then handed it back to the representative of the Blochs, and back on the wall it went. The museum had agreed to lend the painting back to the Blochs, and they will have it as long as they live, renewing the loan every year. Then it will go back to its owner, the Kansas City museum, with the rest of the Bloch collection of Impressionist masterpieces.

The parties signed a confidentiality agreement, keeping the whole business secret even from the staff of the museum. Only three of its 21 trustees were told.

When the museum announced in 2010 the promise by the Blochs to donate 30 Impressionist masterpieces at their death, the Degas dancer was featured in The Kansas City Star newspaper, although the museum at that point had already owned the painting for two years.

Last month, when asked about the ballerina, the museum public relations staff said emphatically that it was not owned by the museum.

Source: Open Channel on MSNBC

Fakes and Forgeries

CNBC Dow Jones Wealth Management both posted interesting articles on fake and fraudulent art.  As is the norm in the art worlds for fakes, the usual suspects are Picasso's, Chagall's, Miro's Warhol's. Giacometti's etc.  The most telling item in these types of reports is many collectors and investors are gullible, lack knowledge and understanding, fail to authenticate and not heeding the old adage of if its too good to be true be wary.

Xiliary Twil of Art Asset Management Group sent a similar article to me from Dow Jones Wealth Management. It also mentions that after purchasing art, many collectors dont wish to spend the extra dollars necessary for a proper authentication and valuation.

Both articles are very good resources for appraisers.

CNBC reports

Imagine a Picasso hanging on a wall in your home. The painting was appraised at $58,000, but you bought it for $6,000. A proud owner of a masterpiece, you’re probably thinking you got a deal of a lifetime. But what if it’s a fake?

The world of fraudulent art is growing quickly, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. People are also becoming more sophisticated in the way they forge art and the way they sell it, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In a troubled economy, traditional investments don't do as well, so many look to art as a stable investment. In turn, scammers try to lure potential buyers, opening the door for more fraud.

Business is good for Emmanuel Benador, a third-generation art dealer who now consults for the FBI. For more than 18 years he was director of the Jan Krugier Gallery, which held one of the largest Picasso collections in the world.

“In matters of fakes, I see them almost every week,” Benador said. "The most commonly forged artists are Picasso, Chagall, Miro, Matisse, Giacometti, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Marino Marini."
For someone shopping for fine art, he recommends taking a few precautions before handing over your money.

First, don’t get taken in by a "bargain."

Source: CNBC

The Dow Jones Wealth Management Reports (in full)

A prized Picasso that turns out to be a fake naturally leaves its owner with a big loss. But collectors can do more these days to ensure they don't end up owning a counterfeit.

Detecting forgeries has become far easier as lasers and other technologies advance. And financial advisers now are stepping in more to see that clients who buy or own art, from paintings to furniture and objets d'art, know what they really have.

Summit Financial Strategies Inc., a fee-only adviser with more than $600 million under management, recently co-sponsored former FBI agent Robert Wittman, an expert on art security and spotting fakes, to speak at the city art museum in Columbus, Ohio. The firm refers clients to appraisers and other experts if they are concerned about a piece of work, says Mark S. Coffey, an adviser with Summit Financial.

Many art lovers pick up pieces on a whim and a handshake, without a closer look that could save them from regrets later on.

The average person doesn't want to spend extra money to determine a piece's authenticity, according to Raymond J. Dowd, a partner at Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller LLP in New York, which specializes in art law.

"If you go into an art gallery and someone says "This costs $10,000," would you want to spend a couple thousand dollars more to verify the artist?" Dowd asks.

The same dynamic may apply to those who already own a work, perhaps one inherited several decades ago. Dowd has seen the results when someone making an estate plan or gift goes to take stock of the piece, say for tax purposes, and finds that it's a fraud.

More collectors, nonetheless, now seek out help and even go to scientific experts directly. The latter trend, says Jennifer L. Mass, senior scientist at the Winterthur Museum in Winterthur, Del., has been helped by popular portrayals of her profession, in books and movies.

Mass examines all kinds of art, from antique glassware to paintings and furniture, in a laboratory stocked with lasers, X-ray sources and electron beams. Lately, she has seen numerous fakes coming out of China. American folk art is another area where forgers are especially active.

A collector of American furniture dropped plans to buy a piece said to date from the 1830s after Mass discovered that 80% of its surface was painted with modern, machine-ground paint instead of the hand-ground paint that would have been used in the past.

Forgers now have more sophisticated tools at their disposal, too, notes Mass, who says there is a kind of "arms race" between scammers and scientists.

Insurance is little help when a forger succeeds in pawning off a fake on a buyer. Policies generally cover damage and theft, but not forgery. Dorit Straus, worldwide specialty fine art manager at Chubb Personal Insurance, says more appraisers now add a caveat to their documents, saying, for example, that the value of the object is a certain amount if its identity is confirmed to be what the appraiser thinks it is.

Needless to say, the art world can be a confusing place, so buyer beware.

"It's not very transparent, not like buying a washing machine with a warranty," Straus says.

Source: Dow Jones Wealth Management

Asia Week in NYC

Artfact is promoting and hosting several sales for Asia Week in New York, including sales from Doyle, Elite Decorative Arts, Freeman's Auctioneers and I.M.Chait Gallery/Auctioneers.

In addition to the Artfact sales, Sotheby's has scheduled four sales, including contemporary Asian art, ceramics, Indian and Southeast Asian art, and classical Chinese art.  Christie's also has about six sales scheduled as well. It will be interesting to see how the Asian market performs this week.

By the way, in the new edition of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies - 2012 (available soon) are articles by Lydia Thompson, Ph.D. entitled The Path of the Chinese Art Market: Sustainable Growth or Bust and and an article by Cynthia Shaver entitled Asian Textiles: An Introductory Guide for Personal Property Appraisers.  Both are excellent reads.

Press release for the sales from Asia Week by Artfact

BOSTON, Mar 12, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Collectors of Asian art and antiques will have multiple opportunities to bid live at Artfact Live and AuctionZip Live during Asia Week New York, March 16-24, 2012. Four featured auctions will be simulcast and include collections of rare Asian art and antiques from Doyle New York, Elite Decorative Arts, Freeman's Auctioneers and I.M. Chait Gallery/Auctioneers. Previews of items and advance bidding are both available now at Artfact/AuctionZip Asia Week 2012.

Doyle New York will present the rare arts of China, including the Honorable Judge Edgar Bromberger Collection and the Langsdorf Collection. Among the over 700 lots in the auction are an important Chinese bronze cannon dated the 34th Year of the Reign of the Emperor Kangxi (1695), a 17th century River Landscape rhinoceros horn libation cup, a Ming style blue and white glazed porcelain bowl with the Qianlong Seal Mark and of the Period, numerous fine jade carvings, and over 200 lots of monochrome porcelains.

The Elite Decorative Arts auction features nearly 800 lots of top-quality Chinese carvings and works of art. The auction showcases intricately carved ivory, jade, wood and stones as well as porcelain, metalwork, artwork and much more.

Freeman's Asian Arts auction features a collection of sought-after huanghuali furniture offered without reserve, including a Ming wine table, a pair of Qing dynasty horseshoe back armchairs and a Kang table. Other sale highlights include a large green jade brush pot and massive late Ming gilt bronze and cloisonne covered jar, acquired in China before the 1900s by a Chinese trade seamen.

I.M. Chait's sixth annual Important Chinese Ceramics & Asian Works auction will feature several stunning and highly valuable Chinese pieces, such as a Yuan Dynasty large blue and white bowl previously in the T. T. Tsui Museum, an important carved spinach jade brush pot originally purchased from Spink London, and a Qianlong Imperial Lapis Lazuli table screen. Also included is an important collection of Contemporary carved Ivory and Wood Netsuke and several fine Contemporary Ojime Beads, all collected in Japan by Rodney Tillman who, in association with the Imiri Family, helped save and preserve Tokyo's "Shrine of The Long White Beard."

To browse full-color catalogs, register to bid or to place an advance bid for these auctions, please visit Artfact/AuctionZip Asia Week 2012.

Asia Week New York 2012 is a collaboration among Asian art specialists, auction houses, and 17 museums and Asian cultural institutions in the metropolitan New York area.

Source: Business Wire

Encyclopedia Britannica Ends Print Edition

Although not really appraisal related, I am sorry to post on the demise of the print edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  After printing the encyclopedia for 244 years, the famed reference source will be now exclusively digital. It was first published in Edinburgh Scotland in 1768.  In 1990 the encyclopedia reached its peak numbers of 120,000 print copies, and only six years later the number was down to 40,000.  The first CD Rom version was published in 1989, followed by the online edition in 1994.

A remember using it as a kid, and as a college student.  I still have an old set, along with the great books series in my home bookcase.  Technology again disrupts an old and beloved standard.

Certainly an end of an era.

But in 1895, when the reference book was in its heyday, The Washington Post wrote this enthusiastic review:

“Every one who reads, every one who mingles in society, is constantly meeting with allusions to subjects on which he needs and desires further information in conversation; in trade; in professional life; on the farm; in the family, questions are constantly arising which no man, whether well read or not, can always satisfactorily answer.”

Source: The Washington Post

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Selecting an Art Fund

With all of the attention the art market has received over the past few years, investing in art as an asset class has become of interest to both collectors and investors.  Kelly Crow of the WSJ recently hosted a panel at the Armory art fair on investing in art through an art fund.

The panel discussion came up with a short list of questions to be answered before investing in an art fund.  The end result was if you are going to invest in an art fund, know how the system works. The questions are very good, and many are applicable to investing in the art market in general and not just art funds.

The panel reported on Art Funds

The panel ended up compiling a sort of list of how to vet an art fund during the due diligence process as a potential investor. The following is a list of questions that the panel came up with:

— Who is the manager? What is his (or her) background? How much of his or her own capital is invested in the fund? Is he or she advising on art purchases outside of the fund? If so, make sure the best artworks are going into the funds, not into the hands of his or her private clients.

— What kind of art is the fund buying — is it reasonably priced enough that a return is probable? If it is in a particular section of the market (Chinese porcelain, Indian painters, etc.), is there reason to believe that the market is experiencing secular growth? Are the works good representatives of the artist's work? Is the fund's portfolio diversified?

— What's the fund's previous record? What's the track record like in bad years? Lastly, if the fund is reporting returns to you, make sure you know how much art is still in the portfolio waiting to be sold (if only two of 20 works have been sold, the rate of return doesn't mean much).

But really, the highlight of the discussion came at the end, from an audience member who reminded everyone that the larger art world still doesn't understand what art funds do, nor the huge risk associated with "investing" in art, and unintentionally showed how kooky the art market has become. Why would you buy into an art fund, she asked, when you could just buy at auction and flip it six months later for twice the price? (This had something to do with a small Gerhard Richter a friend had sold). The answer is, quite plainly: If you think it's that easy, you shouldn't be risking your money doing either thing.

Overall, what was the takeaway of the panel? If you are going to gamble on art funds, at least do your homework and make sure you know how to play the game (and how to count the cards).

Source:  Bloudin ArtInfo

Tablets and the Art Community

The Wall Street Journal just posted a good article on the use of computer tablets in the art and museums worlds.  It states digital advances are allowing more and more freedom to easily explore museums, auctions and galleries.

I just wrote an article for the 2012 edition of the Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies on the use of new items and technology during the on-site inspection.  Some are old standbys, some are variations on past tools and some are completely new.  In the end, technology is advancing rapidly, and changing the way art collectors, museum visitors, and appraisers view and approach art.

The Wall Street Journal reports

Officials at Christie's and Sotheby's say they're seeing more iPads and other devices filling the room during sales. Christie's, which already offers absentee bidding via its website, expects to extend absentee bidding to its iPad app next month, along with new features like access to condition reports on works. Sotheby's just updated its iPad catalog app to allow collectors to take notes in digital catalogs during sales.

Tablets are also increasingly a staple of art fairs. At Art Basel in Switzerland last June, dealer Adam Sheffer, a partner at the New York gallery Cheim & Read, met with a client interested in a work by Ghada Amer, an Egyptian painter whose labor-intensive pieces are filled with intricate embroidery. The gallery's works were inventoried on the iPad using ArtBinder, an app that is swiftly replacing the use of physical binders at art fairs. The Los Angeles-based collector was ready to buy the work, but he wanted the signoff of his wife, who was more than 5,800 miles away in a hair salon in Los Angeles. Mr. Sheffer emailed a close-up of the work to the wife, an art enthusiast, who agreed to the $250,000 sale. "The whole thing took an hour," Mr. Sheffer says.

Miami Beach collector Dennis Scholl says photography and video art are a natural fit when he's considering buying an artwork based on a digital image; for sculpture, with its scale issues, and drawings, with their subtle gradations of shading, he likes to see the works in person. Mr. Scholl recently pulled the trigger on a work by Tamy Ben-Tor, using his iPad to view the video of the Israeli artist as an old woman in a forest. "The iPad, because of the beauty of the images and the clarity of the reproduction, it makes you braver as a collector," he says.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Update: Sonnabend Estate Problems with IRS

Fellow appraiser Xiliary Twil of Art Asset Management Group, Inc sent me a follow-up post to the interesting Forbes article on the IRS issues over the Ilena Sonnabend estate and the un-marketable collage by Robert Rauschenberg.  The values placed on the collage by appraisers was 0 because of the inclusion of a bald eagle in the piece and the IRS placed a value of $65 million because of "black market value".  Click HERE to read the initial post on this interesting story.

The follow up is from an e-zine called The Trust Advisor.  The Trust Advisory states as strange as the Sonnabend situation is, it is not unique.  It states the IRS has a track record of taking a hard line on taxing contraband in estates.

The article is well worth taking a few minutes to read.

Sonnabend’s lawyers are suing for relief from the double jeopardy the IRS has put them in, but the shocking thing is that while their case is bizarre, it’s not unique.

The IRS has taken a hard line that contraband they find in estates is still taxable even though there’s no legal market for the firearms, hard drugs or stolen art.

As such, the heirs have to liquidate legitimate property in order to give the government its cut or else run the risk of being caught lining up illicit buyers.

Even in cases where the contraband can’t be sold — for example, when the drug smuggler crashed his plane and his 600 pounds of marijuana were seized and destroyed — the IRS still wanted its cut from the heirs.

Giving people an incentive to commit crime is especially ironic when you consider that the IRS has proved that it’s eager to look the other way when people hire illegal aliens, provided once again that the employer fills out the paperwork.

“It’s exactly this type of ridiculousness that makes the IRS the most reviled of all the government agencies,” says Colorado tax pro Tony Nitti.

“The service is taxing the estate on the hypothetical purchase price a piece of art could fetch on the black market, even though such a sale would constitute a federal crime.”

Source: The Trust Advisor

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The Armory Show

Alexandra Peers has a good review of the Armory show.  The show is being held at Piers 92 and 94 in New York City, and has about 200 dealers showing.  Additionally there are numerous other art shows in and around the City, so the week is a big one for art circles in New York.

According to Peers, this years show is a bit different, geared more to a younger collector and the results seem to be very positive with strong sales being reported.

Peers reports

But the mood at Armory is good this year. At Wednesday's art-world-celeb-studded VIP night, Koh noted, "It's a happy energy, and it's not just the weather. People are enjoying themselves again." The Broads, who are among of the world's biggest contemporary art collectors, said they bought a Cindy Sherman "Murder Mystery" collage series from Metro Pictures Gallery at another of the art fairs and were still shopping at the Piers when we caught up to them. This year’s Armory Show is "more organized," said Mr. Broad. Added Gagosian Gallery director John Good, "It's grown-up," this year.

Sales so far: Blockbuster purchases at David Zwirner. His silkscreen posters by Frankfurt artist Michael Riedel sold out at about $50,000 a pop almost immediately. (Among other works, Riedel is famous for "Neo," his show of photographs of the paintings by fellow Zwirner artist Neo Rauch.) Ragnar Kjartansson’s “Scandinavian Pain,” an acid-pink sign on exhibit from an Icelandic gallery, has also already sold. Berlin’s Spruth Magers also sold several works, including a Sherman, while business was brisk at Marlborough Gallery, and Edward Tyler Nahem made several sales of new work from Andres Serrano’s “Anarchy” series; the artist also stopped by the fair.

The Paul Kasmin Gallery brought work by a dozen artists, including Nir Hod's "The Night You Left," an oil-on-mirror work, and by Saint Clair Cemin, whose "Father," a sculpture of a giant shoe in a cage, was among the most striking works at the fair. Kasmin’s gallery will have a major show of Cemin works this fall, the dealer explained.

Overall, there is no recession evident in at least some echelons of the art world. In the booth of leading Los Angeles dealer Marc Selwyn, collectors were so bummed he'd sold his Carl Andre — among other pieces — earlier in the day that they sputtered as if it was careless of him not to have brought more. Given the "happy" mood, maybe, it was.

Source: Vulture 

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A Knoedler NYC Location History

Knoedler Co, circa 1910

The NY Times just ran a interesting history of the various New York city locations of the now closed Knoedler gallery. The Knoedler has been sellin

As many know Knoedler has recently closed and is also the center of investigations into a series of fraudulent sales (see earlier post).

Over the past few years there have been numerous complaints and lawsuits regarding many important galleries, including Knoedler, Berry Hill and Salander-O'Reilly.

The NY Times reports

The French-born Michel Knoedler had been selling art in New York since 1846, and by the 1890s was in an old row house at Fifth Avenue and 34th. In 1905 The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that he had hired McKim, Mead & White to build a new structure.

But, after buying a 50-foot-wide midblock lot on Fifth south of 46th, he retained Carrère & Hastings, which designed 556 Fifth Avenue, finished in 1911.

This was the era when collectors shifted their focus to old masters, which dealers gave very contemporary prices. Knoedler’s new limestone building had the aspect of an Italian palazzo, but one that you might find in London in the early 1800s. The stone walls of the magnificent ground floor were vermiculated, shot through with wormlike trails, completely au courant for Fifth Avenue.

On June 14, 1918, the art dealer René Gimpel wrote in his diary, perhaps enviously, that the gallery offered a broad selection: “You’re looking for an engraving for $5 that you’d find on the quays for five sous? You’ll get it here. It’s a Rembrandt etching you fancy, or a very rare 18th-century engraving? Five thousand dollars — it’s yours! Name it; they’ll show you it.”

According to a 1948 article by the critic Aline Saarinen in The New York Times, Knoedler gave the first charity benefit show, in early 1912; 8,000 people paid 50 cents each to see works by Vermeer and Velázquez. Later in the year, a show on behalf of women’s suffrage raised half as much, $2,000

Source: NY Times

Update on the Mona Lisa

Prado Copy of the Mona Lisa

The Art Newspaper has a good update on the Mona Lisa and the early copy at the Prado.  Based upon the background image, it is being reported the Mona Lisa was actually painted a decade later that what was originally thought.  The Louvre dates the Mona Lisa to 1503-06, but the Prado copy reveals a background which was based upon a drawing done by Leonardo between 1510 and 1515.

Of course with the date change comes more complications and changes to what is known about Leonardo, such as his early and late styles, his clients and the amount of time it took him to complete his work.

The Art Newspaper reports

The link between the drawing and the landscape in the Madrid copy was spotted by the Prado’s technical specialist, Ana González Mozo. This emerged during an investigation of the background in the copy, which had been overpainted in black in the second half of the 18th century. The overpaint was removed earlier this year.

When the Prado copy was being studied, infrared images revealed that a section of the original design for the rocks beneath the paint surface had been based on a drawing now in the Royal Collection. Martin Clayton, the senior curator at the Windsor print room, dates the drawing to 1510-15 on stylistic grounds.

The Prado copy of the Mona Lisa was worked on side by side with the Louvre painting, so this connection has important implications for the dating of Leonardo’s original.

Louvre specialists went back to photographs taken of the original Mona Lisa in 2004. They realised that the design for part of the rocks on the right side in the Prado copy also appears in the underdrawing of the original, in a blurred form. This can just be made out in an emissiograph, an image made using an x-ray technique.

It is known that Leonardo had begun the Mona Lisa by 1503, since that year it was recorded in a note by a senior Florentine official, Agostino Vespucci. What remains controversial is the date of its completion.

The German scholar Frank Zöllner proposed “1506 and later (1510?)” in the 2011 edition of his Leonardo catalogue. Martin Kemp, from Oxford University, suggested 1516 in his 2004 book on Leonardo. When the Prado unveiled the conserved copy of the Mona Lisa on 21 February, it also gave 1516 for its version. It was in 1516 that Leonardo left Rome for France, to serve François I.

Source:The Art Newspaper 

Pushing Old Masters

Christie's is hoping its London Old Master sale in July will bring over $30 million.  The Old Master sector is rather stable when compared to the contemporary market.  The Christie's sale will offer a Rembrandt,  “A Bust of a Man in a Gorget and Cap” (see image) with an estimate of $19 million.

Christie's is sending the group of Old Master paintings on a world promotional tour in order to raise interest and awareness.  It will be interesting to see how the sale does, especially with the concerns over the European economy.

Bloomberg reports on the sale

In recent years, Old Masters have struggled to attract new collectors. Christie’s plans to stimulate fresh interest in historic paintings by taking the single-owner collection on a promotional tour to Doha, Moscow, New York, Hong Kong and Amsterdam before its sale.

The 15 works, worth at least 19 million pounds, are owned by Pieter Dreesmann, the son of the late Anton Dreesmann, a Dutch department-store heir whose collection was auctioned by Christie’s in a series of sales in 2002 that raised 7.3 million pounds.

Pieter and Olga Dreesmann are active collectors, owning pieces ranging in date from ancient Greece and Rome to 21st- Century contemporaries. The Old Masters are up for sale because the Dreesmanns, regular buyers at the Frieze Art Fair, are “re- focusing” their interests, said Christie’s.

The group also includes the Willem van de Velde II seascape “Shipping in a Calm,” valued at 2.5 million pounds to 3.5 million pounds.

Source: Bloomberg 

Sotheby's Stock

Since the earnings report at the end of February, Sotehby's has seen its stock drop from a late Feb high of $39.96 per share to a current asking price of $36.8 per share.  According to Bloomberg, the financial markets are concerned with the European economy.

Bloomberg reported on the decline last week

Sotheby’s Chief Financial Officer William Sheridan said uncertainty inspired by the European economy -- Greece is negotiating the biggest-ever debt restructuring -- spooked some potential sellers.
“If you have a Picasso and you’re concerned with what’s going on in Europe, you may just say, ‘Let me wait 12 months until I see some stability there,’” he said in an interview.

For 2011 overall, Sotheby’s reported profit of $171.4 million, its best year since 2007. “You should focus on the year,” Sheridan said. “The variability of what can happen in each quarter is significant.”

Sotheby’s shares remain 25 percent higher this year. They fell $3.59 to $35.75 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had the biggest drop since they closed down 11.8 percent on Sept. 30, 2011.

Expenses for the quarter rose 3 percent to $167 million. Quarterly revenue fell 11 percent, to $284 million.

Commission revenue in 2011 for every $100 in auction sales declined 10 percent, to $16.60 from $18.30, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing cited “competitive pressures to win high value consignments,” such as when the auctioneer shares its buyer’s commission with a seller to win the right to sell a valuable artwork.

Source: Bloomberg 

Fine Art vs Real Estate

WNYC has an interesting post comparing New York City real estate investments to fine art purchases. The article looks at the top 10 art purchases against the top ten residential real estate sales.  It then has a short interview with a real estate agent and an art dealer. Of course the real estate agent says that real estate is the better investment, while the art dealer says it is art.

Here is a chart of the 2011 top ten residential sales in NYC and the top ten art sales.

WNYC reports

It's long been axiomatic that a slice of pizza is about the same price as a single ride on the subway. But here's a new economic parallel for New York City: the most expensive apartments changing hands in  the city last year fetched about as much money as masterworks by Andy Warhol and Gustav Klimt.

For example, Developer William Zeckendorf paid $27 million for a two-bedroom apartment at 740 Park Avenue last November (the No. 8 most expensive home purchase of the year in New York), almost the same price as was reportedly paid by the Mugrabi family for a 1986 Andy Warhol self-portrait a few months earlier (the No. 7 price paid at an art auction.)

Steven Giachetti, an assistant vice president in the EDC's research department, whose recent report highlights the parallels between the two high-end industries, said he wanted to illustrate the role art auction houses play in the the city’s economy.

He was motivated, in part, by increased reports of record-high winning bids at auction houses.

"I realized that these headline-grabbing figures were quite the norm actually," Giachetti said, adding that the art market rebound really hit him at an auction of works by the artist Clyfford Still, which he attended last fall.

(A Still painting -- "1949-A-No. 1" -- sold for nearly $62 million at Sotheby's in November).

Nevertheless, Giachetti said he was surprised a square of canvas and oil paint can fetch as much money as an apartment overlooking Central Park.

Source: WNYC, click HERE to read

African American Art Market

I posted about a week ago on the new African American art sale a Leslie Hindman Auctions, initial reports reveal the sale totaled about $210,000.00, which I think is excellent for a first time sale.

The Huffington Post just published a good article on the African American Art market, its strengths and weaknesses.  The article points to the value and growing interest in this market sector, plus with many prices for emerging artists still at reasonable levels, with many below the minimum threshold to attract the major houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's.

The Huffington Post reports

If the auction world is discovering the appeal of African-American art, a number of art galleries already had the news. "We've seen a consistent rise in prices and growing interest," said Michael Rosenfeld, a Manhattan gallery owner who began a series of African American art exhibits back in 1993, although he is more apt to mix the work of white and African American artists, based on thematic interests, in his more recent exhibits.

The gallery is currently (through April 7) exhibiting figurative paintings by three artists, Benny Andrews and Bob Thompson (who are African American) and Alice Neel.

He noted that there is "a finite number of great works" in the African American field, but for these pieces there has been a "consistent rise in prices." He claimed that the gallery has sold sculptural work by Elizabeth Catlett (b. 1915) for more than $300,000, and for sales of paintings by Charles White (1918-79) "$200,000-300,000 is commonplace." Last year, the gallery sold a tempera on wood design, part of a 26-foot mural titled "Web of Life" by John Biggers (1924-2001), to the Brooklyn Museum for over $200,000. Many of the highest prices for works in this category are from museums, which are "playing catch-up."

The largest auction houses have not wholly ignored the field of African American art ("We present African American artists across our various sales categories, including Post-War, Contemporary, Photography, Decorative Arts, etc.," a spokesman for Christie's stated), but Peter Rathbone, former co-director and now a consultant of American Paintings at Sotheby's, claimed that most of the lots in the Leslie Hindman auction are too inexpensive even for Sotheby's arcade sale, where the minimum estimate is no less than $5,000: "It's a question of economics. We wouldn't recover enough to make a profit on the sale."

 Source: The Huffington Post