Christie’s announced today that it will sell a previously unknown Andy Warhol 1967 self portrait from a highly prized series that is 6-ft. square. Only ten of the works were previously known. Five are in museums (four of those were bought by the museums soon after they were made.)
The work is conservatively estimated at £3-5 million. The current owner bought it from Leo Castelli in 1974 and has held it privately ever since. Colin Gleadell offers a guide to recent prices for these works:
Only three of the large 1967 self-portraits have ever been at auction. In 1984, one was bought by Charles Saatchi for £70,000 and has since changed hands twice. Another sold in 1998 to the Swiss dealer Ernst Beyeler for $2.4 million and is now in the Beyeler Foundation collection, while a third sold in 2004 for $6.95 million.
The other pertinent price is the $6.1 million (£3.7 million) paid by jeweller Laurence Graff in November 2009 for one of the smaller, 22in self-portraits. Like the present work, it, too, was a rediscovery. It had been kept in a closet by Warhol’s former assistant at the Factory, Cathy Naso, for 45 years, was not included in the catalogue raisonné, and had to go through the authentication process before it could be sold. If Warhol prices could be measured by the inch, which is not as absurd as it sounds, this latest rediscovery should, therefore, be worth more than £10 million.
Unseen Andy Warhol Self-Portrait Goes on Sale (Telegraph)
