Colin Gleadell nabbed a few sales:
Richard Green from London achieved the top early sale to a private collector, with Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s brilliant satire, The Peasant Lawyer, whose subject is shown knee-deep in lucrative documents before a queue of peasants bearing gifts, which had an asking price of £2.75 million.
Carol Vogel adds two Old Master sales to the tally:
“The Supper at Emmaus,” by the Italian Baroque painter Bernardo Strozzi, was snapped up on Saturday by an unidentified collector said to be American. Otto Naumann, the New York dealer, admits he took a risk when he bought the painting at Christie’s in London in December for $1.5 million. “I knew it was reckless, kind of suicidal,” Mr. Naumann said. “The painting was so dark, it looked as though it had been in a fire. There were two layers of varnish with dirt trapped in between them.” Yet if it cleaned well, Mr. Naumann said, he knew he’d have a winner on his hands. The London restorer Henry Gentle spent months removing the grime and varnish and discovered a highly detailed scene of Jesus at a table breaking bread. The asking price was $3.5 million.
a still life from 1638 by the Dutch master Pieter Claesz of a crisply painted glass beaker, a plate of herring, bread and a pack of cards at Haboldt & Company, the Paris dealer. Bob Haboldt, the gallery’s founder, said he discovered the painting in a private French collection. The asking price was $3.8 million, and the painting sold to an unidentified American collector Friday.
Judd Tully has early sales from TEFAF:
Robilant + Voena: Agostino Bonalumi’s massive, shaped abstraction “Rosso,” from 1967, sold to a Swiss collector for around €1 million. The same collector also snapped up Enrico Castellani, “Superficie Bianca,” from 1965, sold in the region of the €1.8 million asking price. A third Italian post-war work, Paolo Scheggi, “Intersuperficie curva Bianca,” from 1966, also sold at approximately €230,000.
Galerie Odermatt-Vedovi: Alexander Calder, “Black 2-2-6,” from 1965, sold to a European collector in the region of the $2.6 million asking price, and a petite Lucio Fontana ink on card drawing sold for around €50,000, according to dealer Paolo Vedovi, who said the Fontana “was going to a private plane.”
Arnet’s Colline Millard prowled the fair floor for these sales:
Marlborough: Frank Auerbach painting, Figure Seated on a Bed from 1969 (asking price: £180,000), a fetching head sculpture with butterflies by Manolo Valdés, Luna (2012), priced at €230,000 (US$319,383), as well as a stunning Kurt Schwitters collage, Für Hartmann (1922), priced at €280,000 (US$388,958).
Tomasso Brothers sold a Roman janiform herm, which sold for €275,000 (US$381,000) to a European collector.
Weiss Gallery: Madeleine Le Clerc (1570-72) by François Clouet, one of the artist’s rare surviving works. The asking price was US$1 million. The piece has gone to an American collection.
Bowman Sculpture:Auguste Rodin, selling the Vase of the Titans (1877) for £280,000 (US$465,360).
Van de Weghe Fine Art: sold a Pablo Picasso drawing, Tête Couronnée (1960), for US$485,000 to a European collector
ArtFix Daily had a clutch of sales to report:
An extraordinary parcel-gilt ostrich ewer by Marx Weinold with its basin by Johann Mittnacht I, Augsburg, c. 1690, attracted a buy from Metropolitan Museum of Art at the stand of J. Kugel Antiquaires.
Daniel Crouch Rare Books sold a pair of 17th c. globes from Willem Blaue. A private collector purchased them to go on view at the Rijksmuseum.
In the popular Asian art category, a drum stand with coiling snakes, from the Warring States Period, sold to a private European collector from Vanderven Oriental Art. The asking price was 2.5 million euros.
Among the many paintings sold was a Lucas Cranach, titled “Lucretia”, c. 1537-1540, from Weiss Gallery, with a price tag of 2 million euros.
A Carlo Bugatti chair, made in Turin in 1902, with a asking price of 350,000 euros was sold by Galerie Ulrich Fiedler to a German museum.
Market News: Going Dutch (Telegraph)
Art World’s Cream Rises at Maastricht (NY Times)
TEFAF Reports Confident Market, Strong Sales (Art Fix Daily)
TEFAF 2014 (Artnet News)
Report: Early Action at TEFAF Opening (Blouin Artinfo)
