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A Tale of Two Gris

May 11, 2018 by Marion Maneker

Rockefeller Juan Gris, left, $31.8m; YSL, Juan Gris, €3.8m

In making the New York Times’s case against the Rockefellers, their columnist adduces two works by Juan Gris and wonders why one sold for so much more than the other:

A telling case in point was Lot 2 in the Rockefeller auction. A fine 1914 Cubist still life of a violin on a table by the Spanish painter Juan Gris caused little excitement when it fell to a telephone bid of $31.8 million. In 2009, a similar, slightly smaller Gris still life of a violin, from 1913, sold at the Saint Laurent auction for 3.9 million euros, or $4.6 million at current exchange rates.

The question raises an interesting issue. In the grand scheme of the art market the YSL provenance may have a greater added value than even Rockefeller. His name was synonymous with global high society, culture and fashion. But the YSL sale did take place during the depths fo the global financial crisis. The fact that works sold at all was an achievement. That they sold so well was epochal.

After the sale, Josh Baer reported in his Baerfaxt that Acquavella purchased the Gris for an institution. One has to presume the institution was less interested in the Rockefeller provenance than it was in the work itself.

What if the Rockefellers Had Bought Pollock Instead of Porcelain?  (The New York Times)

Gris Goes Back to Rightful Owner

March 18, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Patient police work seems to have paid off in the case of a 2004 theft of a Juan Gris from the home of a St. Louis man who had bought the painting in the 1960s on a lark while in Spain. The Art Newspaper reports that Robert Dibartolo has been arrested after contacting an undercover FBI agent about selling the painting:

The FBI started investigating the case and then finally in November 2009, Dibartolo spoke to an undercover agent about selling the painting, according to court documents. Just last week, on 11 March, the defendant met with the agent at a hotel in Jupiter, Florida and produced the Gris, wrapped in a blue packing blanket. After the undercover agent determined that the painting was authentic, Dibartolo was taken into custody, and the painting was later identified by its original owner.Continue Reading

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