One of the signal failures in the Contemporary art market after the boom evaporated in the autumn of 2008 was Christie’s Brice Marden that had been guaranteed at or near the eight-figure level. Obviously the Roc Center bastion was a victim of bad timing. But the pricing was also a big leap. Brice Marden’s biggest auction number–$4.3m–was achieved at Sotheby’s in May of 2008. Carol Vogel reports that Sotheby’s is trying again with a work from Marden’s prized Cold Mountain series.

On May 12 Sotheby’s will be selling “Cold Mountain I (Path),” from 1988-89, the first of six paintings in the series. The auction house estimates it will sell for $10 million to $15 million. […]

Of the six works in the series, one is in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, another is in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and a third is a promised gift from the Meyerhoff Collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Two others are in private collections, one in San Francisco and the other in Miami.

Inside Art: A ‘Cold Mountain’ Sale (New York Times)