Final tally for first two days of the YSL sale: €307m or $393 million with premium.
Two sessions left tomorrow, including the heads from the Beijing Summer Palace Zodiac clock.
According to Christie’s site, this Eileen Gray chair was just sold for €21.9m ($28.3 million) with premium. The high estimate was €3m.
Here’s part of the catalogue description:
The unique and remarkable ‘Dragons’ armchair was acquired from Miss Gray by Suzanne Talbot, the first patron to provide her with an opportunity to create a complete environment. The exotic, symbolist character of the piece situates it conceptually within the first phase of Miss Gray’s creative cycle. It aligns with the figurative panels and screens that can be traced to her first public exhibit in 1913 and the first published feature on her, in British Vogue, of 1917; it has an altogether different spirit from that evidenced in reductionist features such as the ‘brick’ wall panelling and screens that gave the Suzanne Talbot apartment so radically modern a character. The armchair distils all that was so personal and so magical in the first, intimately expressive phase of Miss Gray’s career — surprising, imaginative, subtly sculpted and crafted, it is a masterpiece of invention and execution.
These two Jean Dunand vases were estimated at €1.5m at the high end but went for €3m with the premium. That’s a hair under $4 million for those of you keeping track in dollars.
Jean Dunand, regarded as the pre-eminent and most innovative artist in non-precious metals, was appointed Vice President of the ‘Metal’ Section for the 1925 Exposition Internationale et Industriels Modernes in Paris. He was given the commission to create four monumental vases to decorate the courtyard of the Pavillon des Métiers d’Art. The present vases are from that commission
Another Eileen Gray lot scores big at the YSL sale. This one went for a shade under €3 million. That’s $3.85 million even though the high estimate was closer to a $1 million or €800,000.
