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Upcoming Auctions

COLLECTIONS AND CURIOSITIES

18 OCTOBER 2018 | 10:00 AM EDT | NEW YORK

The October decorative arts offering brings together unique and curious pieces, to move beyond “Grandmother’s antiques”. Monumental centerpieces and a menagerie of animals, a world of small figures and various...

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MODERN & CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART 16 OCTOBER 2018 | 2:00 PM BST | LONDON

This October, Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary African Art is pleased to present a selection of exceptional works from across the African continent. The season’s sale will feature standout pieces by leading artist in this category, including Cheri Samba, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Ouattara Watts, El Anatsui, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt and Pascale Marthine Tayou.

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RM SOTHEBY’S: THE PORSCHE 70TH ANNIVERSARY SALE

27 OCTOBER 2018 | 1:00 PM EDT | ATLANTA

RM Sotheby’s, in collaboration with the Porsche Experience Center Atlanta, is delighted to announce The Porsche 70th Anniversary Sale, an exclusive, single-marque auction to be held at the ground-breaking home of Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) in Atlanta. Set for the weekend of 27 October, the sale shortly follows official U.S. 70th anniversary celebrations taking place as part of Porsche Rennsport Reunion VI and will feature approximately 70 of the world’s most important and most sought-after collectible Porsche models, spanning the marque’s illustrious 70-year history as a sports car manufacturer.

The Spectacular Art of Neapolitan ‘Pietre Dure’

By Adèle Bourbonne | Oct 15, 2018

set in stone - collections - tables A South Italian mother-of-pearl, rock crystal, aventurine, marble and pietre dure inlaid top late 17th century, Naples, circle of Cosimo Fanzago. Estimate £50,000–70,000.

By the 17th century the technique had spread from Florence and Rome to Naples, the largest and most important city in Southern Italy. Naples is sometimes overlooked as a centre for pietra dura manufacture, however, a proliferation of ecclesiastical commissions in the 17th century and the opening of the Real Laboratorio delle Pietre Dure by Charles VII (King of Naples and later Charles III of Spain) in 1737 has helped establish Naples as a major force.

The technique is extremely labour intensive. The first stage in preparing a panel would have been to make a full-size working drawing. Paper cut-outs, traced from drawings, were then glued to carefully selected veneers of stone. The stone pieces were placed in a vice and laboriously cut with a bow-saw, before being fixed to a slate ground and finally being rubbed smooth with fine abrasives creating the finished polished surface. Anything from abstract patterns to detailed depictions of flora and fauna were brought to life from stone.

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David Teiger’s Passionate Pursuit of the Avant-Garde

By Sarah Thornton | Oct 12, 2018

David Teiger understood complex ecosystems like the art world. “My goal is to acquire works that great museums letch after,” he told me when I was researching my book, Seven Days in the Art World. A successful management consultant, he had an instinctive grip on the psychologies of the players and knew how to position himself first in line to buy coveted works. Never much concerned about the opinions of his fellow collectors, he relished well-informed tête-a-têtes with curators, writers and dealers. Given Teiger’s love not only for art but for the people who worked with it, I’m glad that the proceeds from the Sotheby’s sales of his collection will go to a foundation that supports art professionals rather than art objects per se. Teiger-deKooning.jpg Willem de Kooning, Untitled , 1987. © 2018 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

“Collecting was a competitive sport for David,” says Tim Blum of Blum & Poe, a gallery for whom Teiger was an important client. “He would research and strategise. He always had his notebook with him. He was very precise.” Teiger was an early adopter of Takashi Murakami, acquiring many pieces, at least two of them masterful: 727, 1996, which he gifted to MoMA New York, and And Then, and Then, and Then, and Then, and Then (Red), 1996–97, which is in Sotheby’s New York Evening Sale this November. Appearing to depict a manic...

Discoveries: Three Iconic Examples of Italian Design

By Mark Stephen | Oct 12, 2018

Sotheby’s Design sale on the 16 October includes three iconic pieces of furniture from the celebrated designer Gabriella Crespi. Milan and Rome in the 1970’s were at the forefront of Design and fashion and Gabriella Crespi one of their brightest stars.

The three pieces from the Plurimi series, purchased circa 1979 straight from the gallery have been with the same family ever since. The two tables are metamorphic with sliding elliptical tops and all characterised by a clean curved line and polished brass, giving them a futuristic space-age look.

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Latest Banksy Artwork ‘Love is in the Bin’ Created Live at Auction

By Sotheby’s | Oct 11, 2018

As the final hammer fell in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby’s last week, history was made: it marked the first time a piece of live performance art had been sold at auction. As the packed saleroom looked on, the final lot of the sale — Banksy’s Girl with Balloon — was in the midst of an intense bidding battle from buyers in the room and on the phones, but what was to follow has dominated headlines the world over, taking the art world by storm and prompting speculation and debate. Seconds after the hammer fell, part of the canvas passed through a hidden shredder, and in the process of ‘destroying’ the artwork, a new one was created.

In a 2017 poll of UK arts writers to discover the nation’s favourite art work, Banksy’s Balloon Girl came out at number one. The painting was housed in an ‘artist’s frame’, a large, heavy, Victorian-style frame of the kind often used by Banksy to poke fun at the establishment. He has previously pulled stunts in the some of the world’s most respected museums and galleries such as the Louvre, Tate Britain...

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