{"id":388,"date":"2008-05-07T09:14:13","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T16:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/05\/masters-still-raking-it-in\/"},"modified":"2008-05-07T09:16:58","modified_gmt":"2008-05-07T16:16:58","slug":"masters-still-raking-it-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/07\/masters-still-raking-it-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Masters Still Raking It In"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/nyt_headline><\/h1>\n

<\/nyt_byline><\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0CAROL VOGEL<\/a><\/p>\n

Published: May 7, 2008<\/p>\n

Fears that the Christie\u2019s sale of Impressionist and modern art would usher in a market meltdown were assuaged early Tuesday evening when everything from a Monet landscape to a monumental sculpture by Rodin brought record prices.<\/p>\n

\"PaulAlthough more modern images seem to generate the most auction excitement these days, the Monet painting was the evening\u2019s biggest ticket. The 1873 canvas \u201cThe Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil,\u201d is considered a prime example of high Impressionism, and Christie\u2019s experts had predicted it would fetch $35 million.<\/p>\n

So when a buyer bidding by telephone beat out two other contenders to pay a record $41.4 million, it proved that the market for top Impressionist works is alive and well. The previous auction record for a Monet was the $36.5 million paid last June at Sotheby\u2019s in London for a \u201cWaterlilies\u201d from 1904.<\/p>\n

\u201cRailroad Bridge\u201d proved a wise long-term investment for the Nahmad family, dealers with galleries in New York and London who were the sellers. They bought the painting in 1988 at Christie\u2019s in London for $12.6 million, which was at the time the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a Monet. (A few months earlier, his 1876 \u201cIn the Prairie\u201d had sold for $22.5 million at Sotheby\u2019s.)<\/p>\n

Monumental sculptures also brought surprising prices. \u201cEve, the Large Version,\u201d a five-foot-tall Rodin bronze of a woman with folded arms hiding her face in shame, sold for $18.9 million, a record price for the artist. Conceived in 1881 and cast in 1887, it had been expected to bring $9 million to $12 million.<\/p>\n

Laurence Graff, the London-based jeweler, sat in the front row and was seen buying two sculptures by Henry Moore: \u201cFamily Group,\u201d a nearly 18-inch-high bronze of a family of four for $4 million, just above its $3.5 million estimate, and \u201cWorking Model for Reclining Figure: Angles\u201d (1975-77), for which he paid $3.2 million, in line with its high estimate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPortrait with a Blue Coat,\u201d a 1935\u00a0Matisse<\/a>, was also a winner. A portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya, his studio assistant and frequent model, in a fur stole and pearls, sold to a telephone bidder for $22.4 million, well above its $17 million estimate.<\/p>\n

\"Joan\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mir\u00f3\u2019s \u201cCaress of the Stars\u201d (1938), which shows the artist\u2019s familiar grotesque abstract figures against a galaxy of menacing tentacular stars, brought $17 million. The painting, which experts link to the artist\u2019s preoccupation with the civil strife in Spain, sold for $11.7 million at Christie\u2019s in 2004. Christie\u2019s had estimated it would sell for $12 million to $16 million on Tuesday night.\u201cAnita en Alm\u00e9e\u201d (1908), a sexually charged painting by Kees Van Dongen of a topless woman with veils whose title invokes the Near Eastern \u201calmah,\u201d or belly dancer, failed to sell. It had been expected to go for $12 million to $16 million.<\/p>\n

A Venice scene painted by Monet in 1908 also had no takers. It had been estimated to fetch $8 million to $12 million.<\/p>\n

As the crowds milled outside of Christie\u2019s after the sale, dealers and collectors were visibly relieved that the money is still out there for the right art.<\/p>\n

<\/span>[ click to read full article at the NY Times<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the New York Times Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie\u2019s\u00a0 By\u00a0CAROL VOGEL Published: May 7, 2008 Fears that the Christie\u2019s sale of Impressionist and modern art would usher in a market meltdown were assuaged early Tuesday evening when everything from a Monet landscape to a monumental sculpture by Rodin brought record prices. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}