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Phillips' June Contemporary Art Auctions include art by Ai Weiwei, Bruce Nauman and Andy Warhol

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LONDON.- Phillips presents highlights from the June Contemporary Art Auctions including highlights by Ai Weiwei, Bruce Nauman, Andy Warhol, Sigmar Polke, Raqib Shaw, Andreas Gursky, Yue Minjun, Damien Hirst and Mark Bradford. The Contemporary Art Sales will offer over 200 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of £22.7-34.3 million ($34.7-52.3 million / €31.2-47.1 million). 

The Contemporary Art Evening Sale presents 53 lots and carries a pre-sale estimate of £17,925,000 - £27,275,000 ($27.3-$41.6 million / €24.6- €37.4 million). 

Of the 39 artists whose works are offered in the Contemporary Art Evening sale 15 have represented their countries at the Venice Biennale in the past. These artists include Lucian Freud (1954, UK), Gerhard Richter (1972, Germany), Sigmar Polke (1986, Germany), Damien Hirst (1993, UK), Yue Minjun (1999, China), Rosemarie Trockel (1999, Germany), Neo Rauch (2001, Germany), Robert Gober (2001, US), Chris Ofili (2003, UK), Gilbert & George (2005, UK), Ed Ruscha (2005, US), Giuseppe Penone (2007, Italy), Bruce Nauman (2009, US), Danh Vo (2015, Denmark) and Sarah Lucas (2015, UK).

Highlights 

Sigmar Polke (2)

Sigmar Polke, Carnival, 1979, acrylic and graphite on printed canvas, 150 x 130 cm (59 x 51 1/8 in.). Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000Image courtesy of Phillips.

In the 1960s, Sigmar Polke instigated the Kapitalistischer Realismus (Capitalist Realism) movement along with Gerhard Richter and Wolf Vostell. This uniquely German Pop permutation was an ironic celebration of the country’s buoyant postwar economy, standing in direct opposition to the Socialist Realism that was popularised and endorsed by the Communist party. Carnival inverts expectations of conventional portraiture. Polke bodies forth a kind of surrealist accretion populated by the ghosts of Socialist Realism, the icons of consumerist complacency, and his own somnolent likeness. All are levelled onto the same picture plane in a pageant of dreamlike and shifting perspectives. A demand is made of the viewer to filter through numerous physical and conceptual layers in order to assemble a visual coherence. A strangely enfeebled self-portrait is doubled, tripled, quadrupled as layers recede. The würst dangling carrot-like from the clown’s cap figures an ironic sanctification of German consumer culture akin to Warhol’s Coca-Cola or Campbell’s soup can, while a worried TV audience hovers nervously beneath. Carnival deconstructs hierarchies. Across different artistic movements, social hegemonies and staid conventions, Polke dreams a fractal reality that radiates intellect and wit. 

PROVENANCEPrivate Collection, Belgium 
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York 
Private Collection 
Christie's, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 14 October 2010, Lot 35 
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner 

Marilyn Monroe

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967, portfolio of screenprints on paper, in 10 parts, each 91.4 x 91.4 cm (36 x 36 in.). Initialled and stamp numbered on the reverse; further numbered on the reverse A124.086, A130.086-138.086. Published by Factory Additions, New York. This work is comprised of 7 prints numbered 62 and 3 prints numbered 137 from an edition of 250 plus 26 artist proofs. Includes original corrugated portfolio box. Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000Image courtesy of Phillips.

Eternal and haunting, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe is an idol of terrifying power. It is an image with which our culture is saturated to the extent that to this day its original impact reverberates, is recapitulated, in continuing affirmation of Warhol’s searing inquest into fame and consumerism. Warhol first created a silkscreen of Monroe in 1962, just weeks after her death at the age of thirty-six. He used a publicity still from her 1953 movie Niagara. The archetypal picture of Monroe in ascension to stardom, this photograph presents a relaxed and sensuous visage: suggestively parted lips, perfect hair, an inviting and smoky gaze. It is a face guilelessly at odds with the brutal and unrelenting serialisation to which Warhol would subject it. Warhol’s well-documented factory-line production methods are at perhaps their most poignant in his treatment of Marilyn. As a pin-up and sex symbol, she was expected to maintain a paradoxically spotless public image; Warhol exposes the tragic contradictions of such celebrity in his Marilyn’s sphinx-like mask. 

Much as his electric chairs or car crashes, there is something macabre in the Marilyns. Brought into being so soon after her untimely death, they capture and preserve her in idealised state. Warhol’s choice of the Niagara publicity shot hit a tragic note when his first Marilyns went on display in Castelli Gallery in 1962; many visitors wept at the face before them, which bears the innocence of her early career before fame and illness took their fatal toll. 

PROVENANCEGalerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris
Collection of Micheline & Claude Renard
Christie’s, London, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 8 February 2006, lot 46
Private Collection, New York
Phillips, New York, Evening Sale, 6 March 2014, lot 12
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner 

LITERATUREK. McShine (ed.), Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1989, . 220 (illustrated)
C. Heinrich, T Sokolowski, et al., Andy Warhol - Photography, New York: Stemmle Publishers, 1999, p. 55 (illustrated)
G. Celant (ed.), Super Warhol, Milan: Skira, 2003, p. 266 (illustrated) 
F. Feldman and J. Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1967, 4th ed., New York: Distributed Art Publishers Inc. and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., 2003, cat. no. 11.22-31, pp. 68-69 (illustrated)
A. Warhol, G. Mercurio, D. Morera, The Andy Warhol Show, London: Thames & Hudson, 2005, pp. 88-89 (illustrated) 

Raqib-Shaw-Arrival-of-the-Horse-King-Paradise-Lost-Series-2011-2012-high-res

Raqib Shaw, Arrival of the Horse King from the series Paradise Lost, 2011-2012; oil, acrylic, enamel, glitter, rhinestones on birch plywood; diameter 273.7 cm (107 3/4 in.). Signed and dated '"Arrival of the Horse-King" (PARADISE LOST SERIES) Raqib Shaw 2011-2012' on the reverse of the left panel. Signed and dated 'Raqib Shaw 2011-2012' on the reverse of the right panel. Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000Image courtesy of Phillips.

Raqib Shaw creates opulent and fantastical visions unlike those of any other artist. Bursting with carnality, his jewel-like surfaces teem with real and hybrid creatures that fight and roar through vivid landscapes. The lurid crowds of Hieronymus Bosch are evoked, as are the fluidly elegant dynamisms of Mughal hunting scenes. His work is infused with personal experience and shaken with an intricate cocktail of other influences: the present lot is from a series inspired by Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which Shaw reconceived as a quixotic song to his own childhood memories. Shaw works in a unique fashion, beginning his flora and fauna as line drawings before transferring them individually to acetate; using a projector, he builds his vast compositions from the centre outwards, before applying stained glass liner to seal off the lines. He then delicately pools paint through a fine nozzle into each area, works the individual sections with a porcupine quill, and finally adorns this intensely wrought surface with gold, glitter and crystals. In Arrival of the Horse King from the series Paradise Lost, his meticulous method results in a startling scene. The trees are filled with wolves; scintillating horses clash in a painfully blue sky, as birds tear eyes from sockets and flesh from bone; classical ruins shatter, strung with screaming ape-faced Cupids and psychedelic flowers. In this postmodern Silk Road of glitter and death, neon blossoms, gleaming halberds and sharp teeth abound, ropes of crystal drawn taut across the composition. This is an orgiastic earthquake of a painting, a gaudy and exhilarating tableau that exults in beautiful carnage. 

Andreas Gursky

Andreas Gursky, Chicago, Mercantile Exchange, 1997. chromogenic print, in artist's frame
sheet 181.6 x 244.5 cm (71 1/2 x 96 1/4 in.) frame 185.4 x 248.3 cm (73 x 97 3/4 in.). Signed, titled, numbered and dated 'Chicago, Mercantile Exchange '97 6/6 A. Gursky' on the reverse. This work is number 6 from an edition of 6.
Estimate£650,000 - 850,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.

Andreas Gursky’s photography marries dispassion and fixation. In his large-scale photographs of the contemporary landscape - tower blocks, shipyards, and roadways - the artist assumes distance from his subjects even as he remains alert to their sublimity. Tracing back to 1990, Gursky’s interest in the stock exchange as a place of human activity is long standing. Dating from that year, Tokyo Stock Exchange depicts a scene comparable to Chicago, Mercantile Exchange; a central desk forms the focal point around which is organised the theatre of human emotion. In other work, the artist casts his gaze over similar institutions in Kuwait and Hong Kong. In each instance, he strikes a careful balance between studied composition and the expressive force of the human gesture. Human activity becomes communal; crowds become entities in themselves, and assume their own distinct energy. Once the image has been arranged, Gursky declines to pass any judgement. Chicago Mercantile Expression, as other of his work, is ultimately an affirmation of distress as it is of rapture. 

PROVENANCEPrivate Collection, USA 
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2006 

LITERATUREAndreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present, exh. cat., Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum, 1998, p. 55 (another example illustrated)
Andreas Gursky 1998-99, exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, 1999, cover and no. 7 (another example illustrated)
Andreas Gursky: Werk -Works 80-08, exh. cat., Krefeld Kunstmuseum, Krefeld, 2009, p. 155 (another example illustrated)
N. Degen, The Market (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art), London: MIT Press, 2014 

Andy Warhol (2)

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964; synthetic polymer, silkscreen ink on canvas; 35.6 x 35.6 cm (14 x 14 in.). Signed 'ANDY WARHOL 64' on the overlap. Stamped by the 'Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board Ltd. and numbered 'A112.965' on the overlap. Estimate £650,000 - 850,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.

Andy Warhol’s Flowers are some of the most remarkable images of his career. Conceived in 1964, their opening exhibition at Leo Castelli’s New York gallery saw the artist blossom to international stardom. The series is a gorgeous embodiment of some of Warhol’s most enduring themes: these are flowers of mass-production, beauty, and death. There is a rich history of flowers in art. David Bourdon likened Warhol’s to ‘cut out gouaches by Matisse set adrift on Monet's lily pond’ (David Bourdon, The Village Voice, 3 December 1964); this wistful image captures a sense of the array of floral referents Warhol could draw upon. Long weighted with symbolic associations of transience, sensuality and glory, flowers play an important role in European vanitas still life paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. These arrangements often appear on the surface to be a celebration of material wealth or natural beauty, but contain pointed references to death and decay. Strewn among skulls, rotten fruit and hourglasses, the fast-fading splendour of flowers made them potent symbols of the evanescence of all worldly things. Warhol’s flowers convey a similar vulnerability. Hovering above a dark and deeply textural grassy background, their flatly vivid colour appears on the verge of burning out or being swallowed up. 

PROVENANCEIleana Sonnabend, Paris
Fred Hughes, New York
Thomas Amman Fine Art, Zurich
Heiner Bastian, Berlin
Stellan Holm, New York 
Peder Bonnier Gallery, New York 

EXHIBITEDParis, Sonnabend Gallery, Andy Warhol: Flowers, May 1965 

LITERATUREN. Frei, G. Prinz (eds.), The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Paintings and Sculpture 1964-1969, vol. 02B, New York, 2004, n.p, no. 1535 (illustrated) 

Yue Minjun (2)

Yue Minjun, Free at Leisure No. 11, 2004; oil on canvas, 220 x 300.7 cm (86 5/8 x 118 3/8 in.). Signed and dated 'yue minjun 2004' lower left. Signed and dated in Chinese on the reverse. Estimate £500,000 - 700,000Image courtesy of Phillips.

The fixed grin of Yue Minjun is an icon of contemporary China. Instantly recognizable, its uncanny and relentless repetition throughout his oeuvre defies easy analysis. Our initial impression is one of humour or levity, but the smile, seen in endless series, becomes a mask rather than revealing true emotion; the expressive loses all expression, and we are faced with a compelling, hysterical blankness. 

Yue was raised in socialist China, working on oil platforms; he later moved to the Songzhuang artists’ colony in the eastern suburbs of Beijing. He first came to prominence in the late 1980s, among a new wave of artists who had seen the end of the Cultural Revolution and emerged vividly from the monolith of Social Realism. In 1992 critic Li Xianting coined the term ‘Cynical Realism’ to describe this movement, characterised by irony and disenchantment in the face of China’s dizzying social and economic change. 

PROVENANCE Arario Gallery, Beijing 

EXHIBITED Shenzhen, He Xiangning Art Museum, Reproduction Icons: Yue Minjun Works: 2004-2006, 3 June-11 June 2006
Cheonan, Arario Gallery, Absolute Images: Chinese Contemporary Art, 28 June-20 August 2006 

LITERATURE Reproduction Icons: Yue Minjun Works, 2004-2006, exh. cat., He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, 2006, pp. 116-117 (illustrated) 

Damien Hirst (2)

Damien Hirst, Veneration, 2007; butterflies, household gloss on canvas; canvas 182.8 x 182.8 cm (71 7/8 x 71 7/8 in.) framed 223.2 x 223.2 cm (87 7/8 x 87 7/8 in.). Signed, titled and dated '2007 Damien Hirst "Veneration"' on the reverse. Estimate £450,000 - 650,000Image courtesy of Phillips.

Through the butterfly, Damien Hirst finds a new way to approach those most enduring of themes – beauty, religion and mortality. His interest in the insect is longstanding, dating back to the very early years of his career. Whether pressed into household paint or arranged in kaleidoscopic form, his work with the butterfly, as with other species, has attracted both controversy and wonderment. The butterfly was at the heart of In and Out of Love (1991), Hirst’s first solo exhibition in an ex-travel agent’s office in Woodstock Street, London. The show was spread over two floors; one where butterflies were born and fed, and another where the deceased insect was set into wetly painted canvases. Fearlessly approaching mortality, the work resonates with much of the artist’s work. In 2001, Hirst began to focus his attention on the butterfly’s wing. Arranging these already intricate forms into yet more elaborate patterns, he began his iconic 'Kaleidoscope' paintings. It is to this body of work that Veneration belongs. Celebratory in effect, the piece is aptly titled; enlivened by an explosive energy, the work joyously bursts forth. Veneration is a practice common to Roman Catholicism, in which saints are honoured, frequently through interaction with outward signs. Raised by a mother of Catholic heritage, this tradition remains an important influence on Hirst’s work. Yet Christianity is by no means the only religion towards which Veneration gestures. In its composition, not least the circular form at its centre, the piece recalls a mandala, a significant symbol in Buddhist and Hindu belief. Drawing together these strands of ritual, Veneration is a richly symbolic piece in which the artist brings his own preoccupations into conversation with histories of religious thought. 

PROVENANCE The Artist
Private Collection, London 

Mark Bradford (2)

Mark Bradford, Waiting on Forever, 2011, mixed media collage on canvas, 102.6 x 122.3 cm (40 3/8 x 48 1/8 in.). Signed, titled and dated 'Waiting on Forever 2011 Mark Bradford' on the reverse. Estimate £400,000 - 600,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.

Mark Bradford’s work is defined by a twin process. He starts with pieces of found media, among them posters, fliers and hairstylists’ endpapers, and from them creates densely layered pieces: accretions of text and image. In this process, remnants of experience are piled atop each other, alternately rearranged and subsumed. 

Often deriving this raw material from the streets of Los Angeles’ Leimert Park, the extent to which it remains decipherable varies between pieces. In Waiting on Forever, 2011, constituent parts are largely legible. The words ‘SELL’, ‘HAIR’ and the telephonic fragment ‘1-887’ suggest that the source is promotional material for the sale of hair - a practice which Bradford would have encountered working in his mother’s salon. Yet in the repeated and blurrily overlaid iterations of these characters, the original material dissipates. It is replaced by a more nebulous presence: an abstracted atmosphere, emerging yet distinct from the raw material.  

PROVENANCE Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York 

Bansky (2)

Bansky, Study for Happy Choppers, 2003, spray paint on found framed oil painting, 79 x 109.7 cm (31 1/8 x 43 1/4 in.). This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Pest Control. Estimate £300,000 - 400,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.

An inveterate provocateur, Bansky works under the veil of pseudonymity to create work of visual audacity and satiric potency. With a background in graffiti, much of his work is site-specific, incorporating features of the urban landscape. Whether a figure emerging from behind a telephone box or a stenciled phrase rebuffing a CCTV camera, his pieces respond to and reimagine their surroundings. They prompt both laughter and reflection, challenging authority as they challenge their environment. Even when he isn’t creating street art, Banksy borrows heavily from its methodologies; his work refashions preexisting objects, be they walls or paintings, with wit and polemic intent. 

Study for Happy Choppers belongs to a series entitled Crude Oils, and references a contemporary controversy – principally that surrounding the Iraq War. The conflict was the subject of considerable debate, and accusations were made that coalition military action was motivated by Iraq’s supply of oil. Study for Happy Choppers gestures towards this debate; the title refers not only to the materiality of the piece but also to the political climate of the time. This willingness to engage boldly and unapologetically with world events characterises much of Banksy’s work.

PROVENANCE Private Collection, Vienna
Dorotheum, Wien, Zeitgenossische Kunst, November 28, 2007, Lot 272
Private Collection, New York 

EXHIBITED Vienna, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Bad Press: Banksy, 25 June-26 July 2003


Three Arabic inscribed bronze covered boxes, Ming dynasty

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Three Arabic inscribed bronze covered boxes, Ming dynasty

Three Arabic inscribed bronze covered boxes, Ming dynastySold for US$ 112,500 (€100,410). Photo: Bonhams.

Two of cylindrical shape, one raised on three short feet and with plain sides, the other banded at the foot, rim and top, both with recessed circular panels cast in high relief in Arabic with the words al-hamdu li-'llah (Praise be to God); the third of six-sided foliate form, the top cast in relief in Arabic script with the Farsi inscription barakat gereft (blessings obtained). 2 7/8, 2 1/4 and 2 1/8in (7.3, 5.7 and 5.3cm) high

Property from the Estate of Ms. Naomi Lindstrom, San Francisco, California

Bonhams. FINE CHINESE WORKS OF ART AND PAINTINGS, 23 Jun 2015 10:00 PDT - SAN FRANCISCO

1st Workshop "The Storage Jar: Evidence for Long-Distance Maritime Trade"‏

Ancy le Franc, château Renaissance

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Ancy le Franc. Parc. Photo Laurent Lenotre

 Situé aux abords de l’Armançon et du Canal de Bourgogne, le château est bâti au cœur d’un magnifique parc de 50 hectares. De magnifiques parterres, jardins à l'anglaise et à la française, petits chemins, pyramide, nombreux cours d’eau et un vaste étang doté d'un îlot avec une folie du XVIIIe siècle offrent un charme délicat à cet espace foisonnant de verdure et de vestiges du temps passé...

Le jardin à la Française : En 1684 lorsque le Marquis de Louvois acquit le château, il entreprit de lui donner le caractère d’une demeure “Grand Siècle”. Il ordonna la démolition des vestiges du mur médiéval, au nord-ouest de château, de façon à libérer l’espace pour de vastes communs disposés autour de deux cours.

Pour égaler les grands édifices de l’époque, Louvois commanda à Le Nôtre d’entourer le château d’un vaste jardin à la française ouvert sur le paysage. Avec ses magnifiques parterres, ses pelouses, ses fontaines et ses statues, Louvois tentait de faire d’Ancy-le-Franc son Versailles particulier.

Le jardin à l’Anglaise : En 1759 le descendant du Marquis de Louvois, le Marquis de Courtanvaux, transforma les jardins en un parc à l’anglaise. Il fit creuser un lac artificiel au sud du bâtiment, avec un îlot très romantique sur lequel il fit édifier un pavillon, fabrique octogonale destinée à abriter ses idylliques loisirs.

Ce pavillon, nommé« la folie », est un élégant témoignage de cette période. Il était l’endroit préféré des propriétaires au XVIIIème, endroit duquel on aimait tirer les feux d’artifices.

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Ancy le Franc. Le Porche NordPhoto Laurent Lenotre

La restauration du Porche d’Honneur a été réalisée entre 2003 et 2008.

Le travail a commencé en octobre 2003 avec le démontage complet du balcon et des colonnes du porche de la façade Nord. Une intervention était nécessaire sur ce porche qui était en très mauvais état et avait subi de graves problèmes structurels liés à l’instabilité des fondations.

Les fondations ont été entièrement reprises en sous-œuvre. Des essais de stabilisation des fondations ont été menés au cours de l’année 2004. Certaines parties en pierre sculptées ont été remplacées, notamment des parties du garde-corps fissurées et détachées. La totalité du renouvellement de pierre représente environ 15%.

 Le remontage effectif a été réalisé en 2005.

La passerelle, côté cour intérieure, a été restaurée en 2007.

La dernière phase, les interventions sur la porte, s’est achevée au printemps 2008.

La restauration a été réalisée avec l’aide et subventions de la DRAC Bourgogne.

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Heurtoir à la Porte du Château d'Ancy le FrancPhoto Laurent Lenotre

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Ancy le FrancPhoto Laurent Lenotre

Ce palais Renaissance est le chef d’œuvre de SERLIO, célèbre architecte italien du Roi François 1er.

Le château, construit selon un plan centré et quadrangulaire, est un vaste quadrilatère. Quatre ailes égales sont flanquées de quatre pavillons carrés. C’est une construction élégante, sobre et harmonieuse autour d’une cour magnifique. La symétrie des volumes, l’harmonie des façades, l’emploi des ordres, la cohérence et la rigueur de l’ensemble témoignent du génie de Serlio.

La cour intérieure, la cour d’Honneur, est l'une des plus élégantes de France. Elle est composée de 2 loggias, d'arches, de niches et de pilastres cannelés sur le principe des travées rythmiques. Les quatre élévations sont toutes dotées d’ornementations et d’éléments richement sculptés. L’architecte inaugure ici un nouveau type d’architecture en France et le château est parmi les premiers en France à avoir été conçu d’abord sur plan.

La distribution des pièces, les grandes baies, la richesse des plafonds à caissons, le raffinement des détails, l'ensemble est la signature originale du maître italien, Sébastiano Serlio* (Bologne 1475- Fontainebleau 1554).

Le Château d’Ancy-le-Franc est une conception italienne où l’architecte a su employer aussi les fruits de la tradition française et à su s’adapter au goût et aux exigences du commanditaire, Antoine III de Clermont, beau-frère de Diane de Poitiers.

*Serlio est également l'auteur d’un célèbre traité d'architecture en 8 volumes, la référence de l’architecture Renaissance. A découvrir aussi l’ouvrage de Sabine Frommel : Sébastiano SERLIO, Architecte de la Renaissance. Edition Gallimard

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Ancy le Franc. Galerie de la Bataille de Pharsale.  Photo Laurent Lenotre

Cette galerie abrite l’un des chef-d’œuvres du décor peint en France. La bataille de Pharsale qui opposa en 49 av. J-C. les troupes de César et de Pompée. Peinture murale exceptionnelle attribuée à l’Ecole de Fontainebleau (Niccolo dell’Abate, Ruggiero de Ruggieri, Nicolas de Hoey, XVIe). Récemment restaurée dans toute sa longueur.

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Ancy le Franc. PlafondPhoto Laurent Lenotre

La richesse et la variété de la décoration à Ancy-le-Franc sont uniques et caractéristiques à ce palais de la Renaissance. C'est une construction française « in costume italiano » selon la formule de la Marquise de Sévignéévoquée dans ses lettres, ce qui lui confère une grande originalité.

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Ancy le Franc. La Chambre des Fleurs.Photo Laurent Lenotre

Cette pièce a été crée et décorée au début du XVIIème siècle à l'occasion du mariage entre François de Clermont-Tonnerre et Anne-Marie Vignier. Les boiseries ainsi que le plafond à caissons constituent un ensemble remarquable. Sur les boiseries sont peintes une trentaine de fleurs toutes différentes par leur espèce et leur forme. Un exemple prodigieux du raffinement de cette époque.

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Ancy le Franc. La Chambre des ArtsPhoto Laurent Lenotre

Cette chambre était celle du commanditaire Antoine III de Clermont. Elle est dotée d'un décor exceptionnel, attribué au maître du Maniérisme, Le Primatice, 1ère Ecole de Fontainebleau (XVIe). Les sept médaillons représentent les arts libéraux (Logique - Astronomie - Rhétorique - Musique - Géométrie - Arithmétique - Grammaire) et un huitième est consacré aux Muses et Apollon. Plafond à caissons polychrome dans son état d’origine, doté de rares cartouches.

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Ancy le Franc. La Galerie de MédéePhoto Laurent Lenotre

Cette galerie est située entre l’appartement de Madame la Comtesse et celui du Comte de Clermont. Un décor Italien à grotesques impressionnants et des scènes mythologiques.

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Ancy le Franc. La Chambre bleuePhoto Laurent Lenotre

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Ancy le Franc. La BibliothèquePhoto Laurent Lenotre

 Renferme une collection importante d’ouvrages qui appartenaient au Cardinal Anne-Antoine-Jules de Clermont-Tonnerre (XIXe).

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Ancy le Franc. Le Salon MauvePhoto Laurent Lenotre

A l’origine la garde-robe royale, meublé d’un cabinet Florentin exceptionnel.

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Ancy le Franc. Le Salon des DauphinsPhoto Laurent Lenotre

 A l’origine le Cabinet royal. Rappelle aujourd’hui par son nom, la région d’origine d'Antoine III de Clermont.

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Ancy le Franc. Chambre du Roi. Détail du plafond à caissonsPhoto Laurent Lenotre

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Ancy le Franc. La ChapellePhoto Laurent Lenotre

Située dans le pavillon Sud Ouest, la chapelle du Château d’Ancy-le-Franc est, par la richesse de son décor, par ses proportions et l’atmosphère qui s’y dégage, certainement une des plus belles chapelles privées de XVIe siècle.

Texte Laurent Lenotre

$3.83 Million Chinese Clock Sets Record for Online Auction of Asian Art

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Imperial Immortal Mountain Clock, China, Guangzhou workshop, Qianlong period (1736-1795), late 18th century. Estimate 300 000 € / 390 000 €. Price realised: 3,037,000 €. Photo courtesy Auctionata 

The online auction house Auctionata (www.auctionata.com) has set a new world record for an Asian work of art sold in an online auction. In its 259th auction 'Important Asian Art', on June 20, which was broadcast online via livestream, a rare enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock from the late 18th century was sold for 3.37 million euros ($3.83 million US, including buyer's premium). This makes it the highest auction result in Germany in 2015 and the most expensive object that Auctionata has sold since the start of its livestream auctions in May 2013.

The rare masterpiece of Chinese clock-making stems from the Guangzhou workshop and was offered for a starting price of 300,000 euros. Overall, the clock attracted more than 1,000 interested auction participants from 35 countries. After a fierce 10 minute bidding battle between 6 bidders from Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York, the museum-quality piece was ultimately sold for 3.37 million euros to the well-known business man and investor Liu Yiqian from Shanghai (click here to view a video clip of the sale of the clock from the auction livestream).

Liu owns one of the most important art collections in China, which is displayed in the Long Museum in Shanghai (www.longmuseum.org), which he founded with his wife. In the past, Liu has received great attention for several purchases of extremely important Chinese works of art, for example when he bought the so-called 'chicken cup', a small porcelain cup from the Ming dynasty, for 36 million US dollars at a British auction house in April 2014. Liu Yiqian comments: "I am more than happy to be the winning bidder for this amazing piece of craftsmanship. Auctionata is providing the auctions of the 21st century, where bidding via livestream is just so convenient, even over an iPhone app."

Imperial Chinese clocks from the Guangzhou workshop are among the most sought-after works of art from the Qing Dynasty. Only very few of them are privately owned, and have ever been available on the art market. Auctionata is thus the first auction house to have offered such an outstanding object of Chinese origin in Germany. The musical automaton clock represents the magical mountain Penglai, which is known as the home of the 'Eight Immortals' of Taoism. The mountain with a waterfall is made with utmost precision and decorated with many small figures, representing the Eight Immortals, their attendants as well as the Three Star Deities. The fully functional automatism sets most of the figures, the pagodas, the waterfall and a richly decorated yin-yang symbol in motion, presenting a fascinating spectacle.

Dr. Arne Sildatke, Senior Specialist for Asian Art at Auctionata, explains: "I am thrilled with this great result! It reflects the historical value of this museum-quality automaton clock and the rarity of its Chinese theme. Curating an auction with such an important artwork is an experience beyond description. The record price of 3.37 million euros is a very strong signal of our international clientele and proves that Auctionata has secured its position as one of Europe's premier marketplaces for Asian art."

A video clip of the sale of the clock from the auction livestream can be viewed here

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Imperial Immortal Mountain Clock, China, Guangzhou workshop, Qianlong period (1736-1795), late 18th centuryEstimate 300 000 € / 390 000 €. Price realised: 3,037,000 €. Photo courtesy Auctionata 

Gilt bronze, brass, copper, enamel, ivory, carved wood, silver and paste stones 

A superb and rare enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock. The case in the shape of a mountain with waterfall, mounted with small figures depicting the Eight Immortals and the Three Star Deities (Fu Lu Shou). Brass plate movement with fusees and chord, verge escapement and hour striking on bell. Running duration: 8 days. Height: 74 cm. Good condition (see condition report); fully functional 

Provenance: Property of an Irish Gentleman and acquired during his travels in Asia circa 1900; exhibited at Robson Gallery in London, 1923; Collection Greenberg, New York before 1949; illustrated in Alfred Chapuis & Edmond Droz, Les Automates, figures artificielles d'hommes et d'animaux, Neuchatel 1949; Collection of the Time Museum, Rockford, IL in 1970s. 

Case: rectangular base with cast and chased gilt bronze mounts. Ruby paste-set mounts to the corners and beneath the pierced gallery. Inset blue enamel panels with applied repoussé mounts, the front with the clock dial and flanked by paste-set floral mounts. 

The mountain in wood carved on all sides. A waterfall in the center comprised of a curtain of turning glass rods, a similar group of rods simulating the river below, and the water cascading from under the bridge created in cast and chased silver. 

Carved, painted and partly gilt figures depicting the Eight Immortals with attendants as well as the Three Star Deities, all similarly decorated. A carved and decorated figure of a horse standing in the river with a circlet of fire upon its back enclosing the symbol of yin/yang. 

Gilt copper small pagoda temple on the left cliff side, with a similar pavilion to the other side. Mounted with gilt bronze peach trees set with silver and paste blossom and painted leaves. Green leaf foliage and flowers around the mountain.

 

Dial: white enamel with Roman hour and Arabic five minute numerals. 

Automaton: hourly or by depression of a button, operated from the musical train in the base and driving the panels of glass rods forming the waterfall and the river. Seven of the Immortals moving their arms, the yin/yang symbol as well as the pavilion on the cliff to the left spinning around.  

Clock movement: brass plates, fusees and chord, verge escapement and hour striking on a bell, 8-day running duration. 

Musical movement: brass plates, fusee with chain, playing the tunes on 10 bells with 10 hammers. Mounted with vertical drive wheels to operate the automata. 

Lot notes: The present clock belongs to a group of magnificent timepieces which were produced during the Qing dynasty and originate from Guangzhou (Canton). The South-Chinese city of Guangzhou served as a trading port and - from a European perspective – as a gate to the Chinese empire. After the Portuguese arrival in Guangzhou in 1514 the city developed to a busy merchant center with a multicultural community. Guangzhou was an entry port for many European goods which made their way into the Chinese market. It was here where in the 18th century workshops were founded in order to produce highly complicated timepieces and musical automatons after European models, which often served as exclusive tributes to the Imperial Court. 

The first models of Western timepieces were introduced to the Imperial Court by Jesuit priests, which travelled from Guangzhou to Beijing. The Chinese Emperors quickly developed a strong taste for complicated clocks with chiming functions and automaton features. The Kangxi Emperor (1654-1722) was an enthusiastic collector of Western clocks and instruments. He even composed poems praising the organizing function of these clocks and regarded them as a symbol of a successful governmental body. His grand-son, the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799), was also a keen and passionate collector and admirer of timepieces. In the 18th century there was already a flourishing timepiece manufactural industry catering to the taste of the highest Qing dynasty’s elite. It is said that under the reign of the Qianlong emperor more than 3000 timepieces were displayed in the Forbidden City. Many of these clocks were produced in Guangzhou and then send to the Imperial Court as tributes, seeking the emperor’s favor and admiration. 

 

The Southern clockmakers were trained on European models as many passed through their hands in the trading city of Guangzhou. These models gave inspiration for the workshops and were melted with a unique Chinese style. Many of these magnificent examples were inspired by the legendary and esteemed English clockmaker James Cox, whose products were frequently exported to the Far East during the 2nd half of the 18th century. The strong influence of James Cox clocks is the reason why in the literature of the early 20th century many Guangzhou timepieces were attributed to this clockmaker or English clock-workshops in general (see the wrong attribution of the present clock to the workshop of Stephen Rimbault in a 1923 exhibition catalogue; cf. scan of the catalogue page). An Imperial edict, issued in the 14th year of the Qianlong emperor, ordered all Guangzhou clocksmiths to hold on to European examples as models for their own artworks.  

The motifs represented in the Guangzhou timepieces are of original Chinese origin, often featuring well known depictions and themes. The overall appearance is a blending of European forms, represented in richly enameled paste-set cases with ormolu mountings after the latest Western fashion, together with Chinese details, such as Daoist Immortals or Buddhist symbols, exotic landscapes or characteristic architecture. The present clock is a typical example for such a cross-cultural symbiosis. Its lower, rectangular part, which is also holding the circular dial on the front side, demonstrates an ornate but yet refined Louis-Seize style. On the contrary, the upper part depicts several genuine Chinese subjects and also its visual language is of Chinese origin. It is a reference to the magical Mount Penglai, the residence of the famous ‘8 Immortals’ of Daoism. The Immortals are depicted all around the mountain accompanied by several attendants. The interpretation as Mount Penglai is further emphasized by the additional architectural elements of the clock. Pagodas and pavilions made of gold are supposed to be characteristic architecture of legendary Mount Penglai. It is also said that in the home of the Immortals jewelry grows on trees, as it is depicted in the present clock by the small golden trees with green leaves and ruby-colored gemstones.  

The iconological concept of the 8 Immortals is here combined with a depiction of the 3 Star Deities (Fu Lu Shou), who are standing atop of the mountain and underneath a little arch formed by rocks. Apparently there are only 2 figures, left but due to marks on the ground and the compositional logic there must have been 3 figures once. The 3 Star Deities, formed by Fu, Lu and Shou are popular gods, forming the symbols of prosperity, status and longevity. In the overall context of the clock and its original purpose as a tribute it seems more than appropriate that the Star Deities are the top or crown of the whole composition. There is another Guangzhou workshop clock in the Beijing Imperial Palace Museum which also depicts the 3 Star deities in combination with the 8 Immortals and which is closely related to the present clock because of a multitude of stylistic analogies (cf. Yang Boda, Tributes from Guandong to the Qing Court, exhibit.cat., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 1987, p. 99, no. 83). Also the octagonal ormolu and enamel case with its carefully chiseled galleries, the paste-set decoration and the swelling, inward curled feet assumes that both clocks were made in the same workshop and the same period of time. Even the delicate jeweled flower decoration and the carefully carved and painted ivory figures look very much the same. Another, closely related ‘Immortal Mountain’ clock was once in the collection of the Nezu Museum in Tokyo and was sold at Christies Hong Kong, sale 2608, Lot 1504. The Imperial Palace Museum in Beijing still holds about 1500 clocks in its collection, where the Guangzhou timepieces and automatons form an outstanding and unparalleled group. Regarding its provenance and its close connection to the Beijing timepiece it seems very likely that the present clock was once also in the possession of the Imperial Court. 

Such an important timepiece of Chinese origin has never been offered in a German auction and must be regarded as an absolutely unique opportunity for private collectors and cultural institutions alike. Imperial Chinese clocks from the Guangzhou workshop range among the most sought-after works of art from the Qing Dynasty. Only very few of them are in private hands and have been available on the art market so far. The last important offer for a group of these rare chronological instruments was the sale of the Nezu Museum Collection, sold at Christies Hong Kong, in 2008, where a total of 10 similar clocks were offered to the public. Those clocks were partly acquired by private collectors or museums, mostly from mainland China, and proved the cultural importance of such timepieces for Chinese arts.  

Comparative literature: Liao Pin ed., Clocks and Watches of the Qing Dynasty, From the Collection in the Forbidden City, Beijing 2002
Alfred Chapuis and Edmond Droz, Automata, A Historical and Technological Study, London 1958
Derek Roberts, Mystery, Novelty and Fantasy Clocks, Atglen 1999
Alfred Chapuis, La Montre Chinoise, Neuchatel 1919

Condition: The movement was fully restored as close as possible to original form by one of the best clock restoration workshops in Switzerland in 2014. The musical and automaton movement was also fully overhauled and cleaned. Restoration to the case was kept to a minimum, preserving the original patina of the clock. Most parts were only washed and cleaned. Where excessive wear was visible small parts were stabilized, repaired and restored.

Rare 19th century Chinese automaton clock with elaborate jewel work brings $526,750 at auction

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This rare 19th century clock, originally made for the Chinese Imperial market, sailed past its pre-sale estimate of $20,000-$30,000 to realize $526,750. Photo courtesy S & S Auction, Inc.

REPAUPO, N.J.– A rare 19th century Chinese gilt bronze with enamel automaton clock boasting elaborate jewel work sailed past its pre-sale estimate of $20,000-$30,000 to finish at $526,750 in a two-day, two-session auction held May 17th-18th by S & S Auction, Inc., in the firm’s gallery at 62 Repaupo Station Road. The clock was the top lot in a sale that grossed just over $1.1 million.

The owner of the clock said before the auction he'd be happy if he got $30,000 for it, so it’s safe to say he was pleased with the outcome,” said Glenn Sweeney of S & S Auction, Inc. “I took this as a positive sign that fine examples of antiques can still bring high prices in a changing market.”

The clock, standing 33 inches tall and 15 ¼ inches wide, featured a mechanical spinning dial on the top, spinning trees and simulated waterfalls. It was originally made for the Chinese Imperial market. The buyer – a collector who asked to not be identified – said he plans to install the clock in a planned clock museum that’s not yet built, after he gives it a good cleaning and adjustment.

The Sunday-Monday cataloged auction featured 320 lots of antiques and decorative arts on May 17 and 219 lots of 20th century modern and design on May 18 (2,500 uncataloged lots also came up for bid). About 250 people attended the auction in person, while over 700 others participated online, through LiveAuctioneers.com. Hundreds of phone and absentee bids were also recorded.

Following are additional highlights from the auction. All prices quoted include a 22.5 percent buyer’s premium.

The Chinese clock was the undisputed star of the May 17 session, but other top lots included a pair of Victorian burl walnut, rosewood and ebonized wood pedestals with porcelain plaques showing hand-painted putti, each pedestal 45 inches tall ($18,375); and a pair of 13-inch-tall 18th century Continental bronze mounted vases made of polychrome decorated ceramic ($7,962).

Two lots posted identical selling prices of $5,512. One was a pair of neoclassical-style figural bronze and marble tables, each with three 23-inch bronze winged male figures. The tops were 2-inch-thick verdigris marble. The other was a set of five antique Continental oil painting wall panels, both 95 inches tall by 29 ½ inches wide and having oil on canvas works on each panel.

An antique Sevres porcelain console bowl with hand-painted flowers and gilt bronze mounts, 11 ½ inches tall by 22 inches wide, realized $4,594; a signed Tiffany Studios lamp with signed Quezal shades, 16 ½ inches tall, in good condition, fetched $3,981; and a Black Forest carved tobacco jar with an anthropomorphic fox, 17 inches tall and in good condition, rose to $2,450.

Rounding out the Sunday session was a set of four French Empire-style brass curtain tiebacks mounted with 7-inch brass masks, both 10 inches tall by 4 inches wide and in overall very good condition ($2,695); and a 19th century Edouard Poteau French ormolu mounted credenza with finely cast gilt bronze mounts and repaired marble top, 41 inches tall by 72 inches wide ($3,981).

The top lot of the May 18th session was a C. J. Weinstein Art Deco starburst chandelier, silver painted metal with frosted glass spikes, 26 inches in diameter, in good condition ($15,312). Also finishing strong was a Hans Wegner President rosewood tambour door sideboard with metal legs, 31 inches tall by 79 inches wide, in good shape save for a few minor veneer chips ($7,656).

A gorgeous Art Deco dressing table made from rosewood and ostrich skin, unmarked but attributed to Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, 49 inches tall by 39 ¼ inches wide and in very good condition, gaveled for $6,125; while a pair of Robsjohn Gibbings upholstered lounge chairs with walnut frames, still with the original finish and exhibiting some light wear, commanded $5,635.

A rare and unusual Arteluce Monza brass pedestal table with a glass top, 29 inches tall and 29 inches in diameter, with some pitting on the brass finish and an edge chip on the glass, coasted to $3,185; and an Aldo Tura lacquered goatskin bar cabinet with brass hardware climbed to $2,450.

After a Monday, June 29th Modern Design auction, S & S Auction, Inc. plans to conduct a major sale, probably during the first week of August. The dates and details are still being worked out and fine items are being secured. Watch the website as August approaches: www.ssauction.com.

Symbolic & Chase at Masterpiece London 2015

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The Symbolic Yellow Diamond, 114-carat Fancy Vivid yellow diamond, makes its debut at Masterpiece London 2015. Photo courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Symbolic & Chase will present The Symbolic Yellow diamond at this year’s Masterpiece London fair. The 114-carat Fancy Vivid yellow diamond, recently certified by the Gemological Institute of America, is one of the largest old-cut Fancy Vivid yellow diamonds on record.

The diamond color grade of “fancy vivid yellow” is the rarest and most desirable color for a yellow diamond, whose vibrant hue is the result of trace amounts of nitrogen trapped within carbon molecules and hardened over the course of millions of years.

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The 114-carat Fancy Vivid yellow diamond is among the largest yellow diamond ever recorded. Photo courtesy of Martin Travis of Symbolic & Chase.

Vintage Treasures

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An Important Ruby and Diamond Bangle-Bracelet, by Boucheron, circa 1935Photo courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

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Van Cleef & Arpels Coral, Amethyst and Diamond Sautoir Necklace (left) & Van Cleef & Arpels Chrysoprase, Coral and Diamond Sautoir (right)Photo courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

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A Rare Diamond-Set Demi-Parure by Paul Flato. Formerly from the collection of Gloria VanderbiltPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Realistically designed as a bunch of grapes, the voluminous cascade of articulated berries each set with a central brilliant-cut diamond within a surround of pavé-set stones, suspended from an openwork foliate design with with circular-cut diamonds, embellished with platinum tendrils, 1930s, together with a pair of articulated ear clips en suite. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. 

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Two Yellow Gold, Lapis Lazuli and Diamond Brooches by René Boivin. Photo courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Each designed as two entwined stylised dolphins, one in yellow gold embellished with scale motifs, the other in lapis lazuli, each accented with a diamond eye, 1957 and 1948, signed Rene Boivin, maker’s mark, French assay marks for gold. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity by Françoise Cailles.

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An Angel Skin Coral and Diamond ‘Serpenti’ Watch Bracelet by Bulgari. Photo courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

The articulated yellow gold body applied with angel skin coral scales, the head accented with marquise-shaped diamond eyes, the tail embellished with brilliant-cut diamonds, head opening to reveal a Jaeger Le Coultre watch, signed BVLGARI, made in Italy by Illario, early 1960s. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

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A Cabochon Ruby and Diamond ‘Têtes Décalées’ Ring by CartierPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Designed as three graduated bombé bands pavé-set with brilliant-cut diamonds, each band set with a cabochon ruby, 1950s, signed Cartier Paris and numbered 64035, French assay marks for gold and platinum.

Cutting Edge Contemporary

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A Pair of Diamond Ear Pendants by SABBAPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Each designed as an articulated line of brilliant-cut diamond-set sections, signed SABBA, mounted in platinum.

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A Shield-Shaped Amethyst and Diamond Ring by SABBAPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Designed as a shield-shaped amethyst, cushioned within a graduated domed platinum band set with lines of brilliant-cut diamonds, lined to the inside with yellow gold, signed SABBA, 2013. Size L.

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A Pair of Pink Spinel and Diamond Ear Clips by SABBAPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Each designed as an undulating horizontal line of circular-cut pink spinels, embellished with brilliant-cut diamonds, signed SABBA PARIS, 2015. 

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An Impressive Purple Sapphire, Garnet, Jade and Diamond Necklace by CarnetPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Designed as an undulating articulated bib, composed of swags of lavender-, ice-, green- and honey-coloured jade gourds embellished with titanium-set green garnets and purple sapphires, pear- and round-shaped rose-cut diamonds and brilliant-cut diamond accents, Carnet.

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A Spinel and Diamond ‘Royal Romance’ Ring by CarnetPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Designed as a central rectangular-shaped fancy-cut orangy-pink spinel weighing 5.27 carats, within a wide tapering pale blue titanium band pavé-set to the shoulders with brilliant-cut diamonds embellished with brilliant-cut spinel accents, the gallery set with brilliant-cut diamonds, mounted in titanium and white gold, signed Carnet.

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A Pair of Spinel and Diamond ‘Pink Perfection’ Ear Pendants by CarnetPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Each designed as a drop-shaped pale-blue titanium surmount pavé-set with brilliant-cut diamonds, suspending a graduated articulated line of round rose-cut diamonds alternating with diamond-set rondelles, to an oval-shaped pendant pavé-set to both sides with brilliant-cut diamonds and spinels, set to the centre with a rectangular-shaped natural fancy-cut orange-pink spinel weighing 5.79 and 5.58 carats respectively, mounted in white gold and titanium, signed Carnet.

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A Pair of Blue Sapphire and Diamond ‘Blue and White Reverie’ Earrings by CarnetPhoto courtesy of Symbolic & Chase.

Each designed as an annular drop composed of a titanium base pavé-set with blue sapphires, overlaid with a domed openwork motif set with rose-cut diamonds, mounted in titanium and white gold, signed Carnet.

Symbolic & Chase will be exhibiting at Stand Number C7 at Masterpiece London from June 25 to July 1, 2015.

A Sargent Landscape, Unseen Works by Monet and Warhol and The Empress Eugenie Pearls Among Highlights at This Year's Masterpiece

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‘The Empress Eugenie Pearls’ - a pair of natural grey pearl earrings. Courtesy of Siegelson (USA).

LONDON - Masterpiece London, the summer’s leading international cross-collecting fair for art, antiques and design, will take place at the Royal Hospital Chelsea from 25 June – 1 July 2015 (Preview on 24 June). Supported by Principal Sponsor, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Fair sits at the heart of the capital’s busy summer art and auction season. Last year, the art market generated over half a billion pounds worth of art sales during the week of Masterpiece, and the Fair is delighted to support and promote this culturally significant time for London and the United Kingdom.

Visitors can look forward to what they have come to expect from Masterpiece London – a fair which offers for sale museum-quality works with superb provenance from over 150 galleries worldwide and provides an unparalleled opportunity to buy or admire the best pieces available across every discipline in the art market. Showcasing works that span over 4,000 years of art history, from antiquity to the present day, the Fair is a unique event that provides something of interest for every visitor.

Drawing collectors and museum curators from around the world, Masterpiece has established itself as an important annual meeting place. The success of the Fair can, in part, be attributed to the groundswell of interest and purchases from world-renowned institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Rijksmuseum, MoMA, British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, The Getty and Tate, to name a few. In addition, this year the Fair welcomes the Wallace Collection, the National Portrait Gallery, The Courtauld Institute of Art and Sir John Soane’s Museum as its official Cultural Partners.

Nazy Vassegh, Chief Executive of Masterpiece said, “The 8 days when Masterpiece takes place is the epicentre of the art season in London. After just five years Masterpiece is now firmly regarded as both a leading international art fair and a welcome addition to the summer season in London. We are particularly delighted by the exhibitors and partners that will join us for the 2015 edition.”

New for 2015, Masterpiece London welcomes significant additions to the Fair’s already prestigious line-up: Richard Green (UK), Didier Aaron (UK; France; USA), David Gill Gallery (UK), Kraemer Gallery (France), Mazzoleni (UK), Jacques de la Béraudière (Switzerland), Van Cleef & Arpels (France), 88-Gallery (Hong Kong; France), Burzio (Italy), Galerie Marcilhac (France), John Martin Gallery (UK), Stanley Gibbons (UK), Nukaga Gallery (Japan; UK) and Nilufar (Italy). The addition of these exhibitors further cements Masterpiece London’s position as a leading cross-collecting Fair. 

Exhibitors are increasingly choosing Masterpiece as the event from which to showcase innovative new designs, specially commissioned contemporary works, masterpieces, new discoveries and works of immaculate provenance. 2015 is no different – New York based jewellery dealer Siegelson (USA) will offer for sale an exquisite pair of earrings containing pearls which belonged to the last Empress of France, Eugenie de Montijo. A portrait of the Empress hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in which she can be seen wearing these pearls. Long-Sharp Gallery (USA) will display a rare and never before seen work by Andy Warhol, entitled ‘The Socialite’ of the attorney Olga Berde Mahl. This work was used by Warhol to purchase his Watts Street studio, which he worked in until his death.  

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Unseen Work by Andy Warhol, 'The Socialite’, 1986-1987. 40 x 40 inches. Courtesy Long-Sharp Gallery (USA).

Masterpiece London has been referred to as “an international art fair with a British accent”. This year there will be an exceptional array of important British works offered for sale – Richard Green (UK) will offer a superb collection of 13 works by Laurence Stephen Lowry. In addition, Offer Waterman & Co (UK) will offer works by Barbara Hepworth, timed to coincide with the opening of the solo show at Tate Britain, alongside a monumental feminine form by William Turnbull, which will be presented in one of the public spaces within the Fair. Thomas Gibson Fine Art (UK) will offer the exceptional ‘Sighs from Hell’ by R. B. Kitaj, a skilled draughtsman who draws comparisons with Degas, which comes from the esteemed Bergman collection in Chicago, Lowell Libson Ltd (UK) will offer a great late watercolour by J.M.W. Turner, ‘A view over the val d’Aosta’, painted in 1836, while Piano Nobile (UK) will offer works from 20th century British artists, including ‘The Grey Shawl’ by William Nicholson, , which comes from the private collection at Harewood House, and 'KA IV', by Bridget Riley, created in 1980.

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Laurence Stephen Lowry, "At The Seaside". Signed and dated lower right: L.S. Lowry 1957; inscribed AT THE SEASIDE on the overlap Oil on canvas: 20 x 24 in / 50.8 x 61 cm Framed size: 26 ¼ x 30 ¼ in / 66.7 x 76.8 cm. Courtesy of Richard Green (UK).

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R. B. Kitaj,  ‘Sighs from Hell’, 1979Courtesy of Thomas Gibson Fine Art (UK).

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Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949), "The Grey Shawl", 1910. Signed 'William Nicholson 1910', oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm, 36 x 28 inCourtesy of Piano Nobile (UK).

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Bridget Riley (b. 1931), "KA IV", 1980. Signed and inscribed on reverse. Oil on linen, 78 x 68. Courtesy of Piano Nobile (UK).

Important British works will also include ‘The Tom Scott Collection of Clocks’ offered for sale by Carter Marsh & Co (UK), which is the finest private collection of clocks to come onto the market in living memory and includes the 1696 ‘Medici Tompion’. British furniture highlights include a diverse selection of antique tables, such as a George II carved side table attributed to William Linnell, a magnificent table with a rectangular Medicis Breccia marble top, to be offered by Apter-Fredericks (UK). 

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The Prestige Tompion no.285. Courtesy of Carter Marsh & Co (UK)

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George II carved mahogany side table attributed to William Linnell. Courtesy of Apter-Fredericks (UK). 

Other highlights include a Louis-Alexandre Bellangé desk, created in a Renaissance style c.1840 in Paris, with ebony and tortoiseshell inlay on an oak structure, mahogany drawers and gilt bronze mounts, presented by Didier Aaron (UK; France; USA). The Hinton House Strong Box, a rare William and Mary brass bound ebonised strong box on a giltwood stand, created c. 1690, will be presented by Ronald Phillips (UK), while Rolleston (UK) will present an exceptional Charles II olive oyster-veneered and floral marquetry cabinet. Rose Uniacke (UK) will present one of the only beds to have ever been exhibited at the Fair – attributed to R. W. Winfield, this is an eye-catching silvered pressed metal and parcel gilt four poster bed, created c.1860. 

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Charles II olive oyster-veneered and floral marquetry cabinet-on-stand, English, circa 1685. Width: 48¼” 123 cm Depth: 21½” 55 cm Height: 63¾” 162 cm. Courtesy of Ronald Phillips (UK)

From the 20th century, Geoffrey Diner Gallery (USA) will present two iconic Tiffany Studios lamps, one depicting the peony and the other wisteria, and a Gerald Summers armchair constructed from a single piece of bent plywood, which is also the first chair to be formed in a mould, will be presented by Peter Petrou (UK). 

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Tiffany Studios Lamp: An important “Peony” shade on rare Tiffany ball base, bronze and glass, based tiffany studios new york, c. 1905. Shade impressed tiffany studios new york 1505-37. Shade diameter 22.75 in. (57.8 cm). Courtesy of Geoffrey Diner Gallery (USA)

Masterpiece has long heralded the discipline of design and designer-makers as central to the Fair. This year an already strong line-up of design specialist galleries will be bolstered by theaddition of David Gill Gallery (UK), who will offer some ground-breaking works by Mattia Bonetti, as well as pieces from Zaha Hadid, and the return of design studio Based Upon (UK),who will showcase the breadth of their capabilities and in particular their innovative material‘tramazite’. 88-Gallery (Hong Kong) will offer important and vibrant works by Kam Tim, and Carpenters Workshop Gallery (France; UK) will offer a body of work by Ingrid Donat. Britishdesign house Linley (UK) will unveil 'LIGHTSCAPE' a collection of three pieces that celebrate thechanging light in the city and how it transforms architecture.

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Mattia Bonetti, Console ‘Venetian’, 2012. Scagliola, bronze, polished. L228 x D75 x H83 cm / L89.8 x D29.5 x H32.7 in. Editions David Gill, limited to 3 + 1AP + 1PCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Chandelier‘Opera’, 2014. Bronze, crystal. H115 x Diam. 34 cm / H45.3 Diam. 13.4 in. Editions David Gill, limited to 8 + 2P + 2AP. Courtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Sofa‘Shield’, 2014. Gilded carved wood, mohair. L240 x D100 x H90cm / L94.5 x D39.4 x H35.4 in. Editions David Gill, Limited to 12 + 2P + 2AP. Courtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Table Lamp‘Incroyables’, 2012. Bronze, silver plated, black patination. H73 x Diam. 43 cm / H28.7 x Diam 16.9 in .Editions David Gill, limited to 30 + 2P + 2APCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Standard Lamp‘Grotto’, 2014. Bronze, silk shade H185 x Diam. 45 cm / 72.8 x Diam 17.7 in. Editions David GillCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Side Table ‘Grotto’, 2014. Patinated bronze. H66 x Diam. 69 cm / H26 x Diam. 27.2 in. Editions David GillCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Firedogs ‘Flames Japan’, 2012. Polished bronze, black patinated stands. L25 x D57 x H43 cmL9.8 x D22.4 x H16.9 in. Editions David GillCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Mattia Bonetti, Dining Table ‘Atlantis’, 2014. Bronze, marble. L320 x W130 x H75 cm / L126 x W51.2 x H29.5 in. Editions David Gill Limited to 8 + 2P + 2APCourtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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Zaha Hadid, Stool ‘Liquid Glacial’, 2015. Acrylic. L78 x D68 x H45 cm / L30.7 x D26.8 x H17.7 in. Editions David Gill, limited to 48 + 4P + 4AP. Courtesy of David Gill Gallery (UK).

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"The Birth of Tramazite", 2015, 1500mm x 1500mm x 25mm. Tramazite, aluminium honeycomb & bronzeCourtesy of Based Upon (UK).

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Enfilade en Turquoise, by Kam Tin, 2013, 151 x 67 x 50 cm. Courtesy of 88-Gallery (Hong Kong). 

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Ingrid Donat, "Banc Tribal", 2014. Bronze, leather. H34.5 L111 W39 CM / H13.6 L43.7 W15.3 IN. Limited edition of 8 + 4 APCourtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery (France; UK).

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Ingrid Donat, "Art Book Console", 2011. Bronze, parchment. H80 L168 W38 CM / H31.5 L66.1 W15 IN. Limited edition of 8 + 4 AP. Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery (France; UK).

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Ingrid Donat, "Commode aux 5 engrenages (grande modèle)", 2013. Bronze. H90 L160 W48 CM / H35.4 L63 W18.8 IN. Limited edition of 8 + 4 AP. Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery (France; UK).

Returning for the sixth edition are a selection of internationally celebrated galleries including A.Pallesi Art Gallery (Monaco), A La Vieille Russie (USA), Adrian Sassoon (UK), Aktis Gallery (UK), Alessandra di Castro (Italy), Amir Mohtashemi (UK), Apter-Fredericks (UK), Ariadne Galleries (USA), Berko Fine Paintings (Belgium), Blain|Southern (UK), Bottegantica (Italy), Carolle Thibaut Pomerantz (France), Charles Ede (UK), Carpenters Workshop Gallery (France; UK), Collisart, LLC (USA), Crane Kalman Gallery (UK), De Backker Medieval Art (Belgium), Dickinson (UK; USA), Edward Hurst (UK), Elle Shushan (USA), Fitzgerald Fine Arts (USA), Fred Leighton (USA), Galerie Chenel (France), Godson & Coles (UK), Genrokuart (Italy), Geoffrey Diner Gallery (USA), Hancocks (UK), Hemmerle (Germany), Hirschl & Adler (USA), James Harvey British & Sporting Art (UK), Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art (UK; Portugal), Koopman Rare Art (UK), Les Enluminures (France; USA), Lowell Libson Ltd (UK), Mallett (UK), MacConnal – Mason Gallery (UK), Matteo Lampertico (Italy), Michele Beiny (USA), Offer Waterman & Co (UK), Osborne Samuel Gallery (UK), Peter Harrington (UK), Robert Young Antiques (UK), Robilant + Voena (UK), Ronald Phillips Ltd. (UK), Rose Uniacke (UK), Rupert Wace Ancient Art (UK), S.J. Phillips Limited (UK), Siegelson (USA), Steinitz (France), Symbolic & Chase (UK), The Fine Art Society (UK), The Sladmore Gallery (UK), Thomas Gibson Fine Art (UK), Tomasso Brothers Fine Art (UK), Vanderven (The Netherlands), Véronique Bamps (Monaco), Wartski (UK), Whitford Fine Art (UK), and William Weston Gallery (UK).

Tickets can be purchased online at www.masterpiecefair.com


Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art at Masterpiece London 2015

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Pair of Famille Rose figures, China, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795). Porcelain decorated in overglaze enamels of the famille rose palette. H: 26cm; W: 15cm. Price on request. Courtesy Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art

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Blue and white European subject five-piece garniture, China, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period (1662-1722), ca. 1700-1710. Porcelain decorated in underglaze cobalt blue. Jars with covers H. 59 cm Ø 36 cm. Beaker H. 51.5 cm Ø 23 cmPrice on request. Courtesy Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art

Masterpiece London 2015. Stand C 29. Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art116 Kensington Church Street, London, W8 4BH , United Kingdom. T  +44 (0)207 229 21 40 - F  +44 (0)207 792 35 35 - www.jorgewelsh.com - uk@jorgewelsh.com

Jorge Welsh Porcelana Oriental e Obras de Arte. Rua da Misericórdia, 41-47, 1200-270 Lisbon, Portugal. T  +351 21 395 33 75 - F  +351 21 393 07 03 - pt@jorgewelsh.com  - E-mail uk@jorgewelsh.com - Website http://www.jorgewelsh.com

Amir Mohtashemi Ltd. at Masterpiece London 2015

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Chinese porcelain blue ewer made for the Islamic market, Jingdezhen, China, 18th century

Chinese porcelain blue ewer made for the Islamic market, Jingdezhen, China, 18th centuryPrice on request. Courtesy Amir Mohtashemi Ltd.

Kraak dish decorated with Persian ladies, Jingdezhen, China, 17th century

Kraak dish decorated with Persian ladies, Jingdezhen, China, 17th centuryPrice on request. Courtesy Amir Mohtashemi Ltd. 

Chinese blue and white huqqa base, China, Kangxi period (1662-1722)

Chinese blue and white huqqa base, China, Kangxi period (1662-1722)Price on request. Courtesy Amir Mohtashemi Ltd. 

 

Blue and white Iznik tile, Turkey, First half of the 16th century

Blue and white Iznik tile, Turkey, First half of the 16th centuryPrice on request. Courtesy Amir Mohtashemi Ltd.

Masterpiece London 2015. Stand C5. Amir Mohtashemi Ltd, 69 Kensington Church Street, London, W8 4BG , United Kingdom. T  +44 20 7937 4422 - F  +44 20 7937 4411. Mon.-Fri. 10:00-6:00 - www.amirmohtashemi.com - info@amirmohtashemi.com - E-mail info@amirmohtashemi.com - Website http://www.amirmohtashemi.com

Siegelson at Masterpiece London 2015

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The Whitney Emerald An Art Deco platinum, emerald, and diamond ring by Tiffany & Co

The Whitney Emerald: An Art Deco platinum, 8.51 carats Colombian emerald, and diamond ring by Tiffany & Co., New York, circa 1925Price on request. Courtesy Siegelson.

A ring centering an emerald-cut emerald in a millegrain bezel accented on the sides with old European-cut diamonds in millegrain settings, the outline of the millegrain creating a four-leaf form; mounted in platinum • 1 emerald-cut emerald, weighing 8.51 carats • Old European-cut diamonds, total weighing approximately .50 carat • Signed Tiffany & Co. 

American Gemological Laboratories The Prestige Gemstone Report no. CS 61380, dated January 8, 2015, stating that the 8.51-carat emerald is natural beryl of Classic Colombia origin with insignificant clarity enhancement.

Art Deco diamond and sapphire bangle bracelet by Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris, 1924

Art Deco diamond and sapphire bangle bracelet by Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris, 1924Price on request. Courtesy Siegelson.

A tubular band bangle with pear-shape diamond and sapphire terminals surrounded with fine single- and full-cut diamond pierced scrollwork contrasted by bands of calibré sapphires, hinged at the shoulders to rotate open; mounted in platinum; with French assay marks • 1 pear-shape diamond, weighing approximately 3 carats • 1 pear-shape sapphire, weighing approximately 3.50 carats • Signed “Van Cleef & Arpels,” numbered “23465” • Measurements: 2 1/2 x 2 3/4 x 1/4

The Worth Brooch An Art Deco rock crystal, black onyx, and diamond “Orange Tree” BROOCH by Cartier, Paris, 1926

The Worth Brooch: An Art Deco rock crystal, black onyx, and diamond “Orange Tree” brooch by Cartier, Paris, 1926Price on request. Courtesy Siegelson.

A stylized orange tree jabot pin composed of a carved rock crystal floral canopy stylized oranges of black onyx and diamond, with a black onyx trunk on a pave-set diamond ground, continuing to a fluted rock crystal jardinière with Greek-style handles in black onyx accented with circular diamonds; mounted in platinum, with French assay marks • Signed Cartier and nos. 02046 and 05011 • Measurements: 2 3⁄16 x 1 1⁄2 inches

Masterpiece London 2015. Stand B3. Siegelson. 589 5th Avenue, Suite 1501, New York, NY 10017, United States. T  212-832-2666 -F  212-832-2882 - E-mail siegelson@siegelson.com - Website http://www.siegelson.com

Gerhard Richter (B. 1932), A B, Brick Tower, 1987

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Gerhard Richter (B. 1932), A B, Brick Tower, signed, dated 1987 and numbered 643-1 on the reverse, oil on canvas, 200 by 140cm.; 78 3/4 by 55in. Estimate 12,000,000 — 16,000,000 GBP (16,631,959 - 22,175,945 EUR). Photo: Sotheby's.

ProvenanceAnthony d’Offay Gallery, London
Private Collection, New York
Sale: Christie’s, New York, Post-War Evening Sale, 13 November 2001, Lot 28
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Galerie Art and Public, Geneva
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2003

Exhibition: London, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, Gerhard Richter: The London Paintings, 1988, n.p., illustrated in colour
Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Claude Monet… bis zum digitalen Impressionismus, 2002, p. 128, no. 72, illustrated in colour

BibliographyAndreas Papadakis, Ed., German Art Now: Art & Design, London 1989, p. 44, illustrated in colour
Anna Moszynska, Abstract Art, London 1990, p. 223, no. 158, illustrated in colour
Angelika Thill, et. al., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, n.p., no. 643-1, illustrated in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Modern, Gerhard Richter: Panorama, 2011, p. 129 (text)
Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1976-1987, Vol. III, Ostfildern 2013, p. 609, no. 643-1, illustrated in colour

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Installation view with the present work, The London Paintings, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1988© Gerhard Richter, 2015

Notes: “The titles Richter has given this group of fourteen abstract paintings are not descriptive; they refer in a general associative way to his experiences of the city – to the chapels in Westminster Abbey, to the Tower of London.” Jill Lloyd, ‘Gerhard Richter: The London Paintings’ in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Anthony D’Offay Gallery, Gerhard Richter: The London Paintings, 1988, n.p.

The group of abstract paintings created for Richter’s 1988 show at Anthony d’Offay Gallery – his first major commercial exhibition in London – are indefatigably tied to their host city. From this corpus of fourteen so-called London Paintingscreated in response to a trip Richter made to London in 1987, A B, Brick Tower looms in exquisite swathes of richest red accented with strident kaleidoscopic underlayers of aquamarine blue, sunset orange, canary yellow and verdant green. Indeed, echoing the exquisite light effects and chromatic intensity of Claude Monet’s depiction of the Houses of Parliament and his iconic corpus depicting his water Lillie garden at Giverny, A B, Brick Tower, was included in the seminal exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in 2002, Claude Monet… Up To Digital Impressionism. Displayed side by side, the parity between the Impressionist Master and the Master of Digital Impressionism is startling, with the present work delivering an opulent panorama of all-encompassing colour to rival Monet’s iconic Nympheas. Sumptuous impasto passages of viscous oil paint cover and reveal magnificent sediments of intense chromatic strata; an effect that conjures organic weathering and an atmospheric intimation of the painting’s urban title. While the painting’s name immediately evokes towering power station chimneys familiar to London’s twentieth-century industrial landscape, A B, Brick Tower also encompasses a more direct connection to the City of London whose history dates back to the settlement of the Roman Empire. Specifically, Richter’s painting takes its name from William the Conquerer’s medieval castle, the Tower of London. Named after one of the perimeter towers surrounding the central keep, this painting joins both Flint Tower and Salt Tower (two further towers from the twenty-one that surround the main castle) as abstractly anchored to a specific architectural monument. Within this corpus, the Towers’ companion pieces possess names that also anchor inchoate abstract fields of painterly abstraction to the chapels and saintly characters associated with the Tower of London’s central White Tower and those of Westminster Abbey: A B, St JohnA B, St Andrew; and A B, St Bridget. Furthermore works from the London Paintings reference the general location of Westminster Abbey: A B, St James; while one monumental work possesses a more abstract allusion to the spiritual nature of ecclesiastical buildings: A B, Sanctuary. As with the extant thirteen works in this ground-breaking series, each follows a particular quality which is enforced by Richter’s subsequent titling. Alongside other works in this corpus, Richter conjures a mixture of evocations that complexly negotiate ecclesiastical and cultural references whilst at the same time eschewing literal interpretation. Indeed, far from performing a narrative function, these names operate within an intensely imaginative dimension rooted in Richter’s experience and anticipation of his London exhibition. Heralding its return, the appearance of this exceptional painting at auction in London marks a truly momentous occasion.

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Gerhard Richter, A B, St John, 1988. Tate Collection, London© Gerhard Richter, 2015

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Gerhard Richter, A B, St Andrew, 1988. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles© Gerhard Richter, 2015

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Gerhard Richter, A B, St Bridget, 1988. Obra Social “la Caixa” (“la Caixa” Foundation), Barcelona© Gerhard Richter, 2015

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Gerhard Richter, A B, Sanctuary, 1988. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.© Gerhard Richter, 2015

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The Monet Nymphéas at the Museum of Orangerie, Paris. Image: © FANTHOMME Hubert

The Tower of London possesses a magnificently rich past. Built by William the Conqueror (first Norman King of England) as a battlement to subdue Londoners following his victory at the Battle of Hastings, the Tower complex is legendary for having served as an armoury, menagerie and Treasury, it is the home of the Royal Mint and Crown Jewels, and famously served as a prison during the Tudor era (Sir Walter Raleigh was in fact imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I in Brick Tower) associated with executions and the famous legend of the Princes in the Tower under the reign of Richard III. Its appearance in art history dates back to illuminated manuscripts, such as Froissart's Chronicles (circa 1400) which recount the Hundred Years War, or the Poems of Charles d’Orleans (circa 1480) in which the captive Duke of Orleans can be seen writing his manuscript from the Tower. Other famous art historical instances include various woodcuts and engravings, seventeenth-century depictions of the fire of London, Paul Delaroche’s iconic painting of The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833), as well as J.M.W. Turner’s maritime view of the Tower from across the River Thames of 1825. Immortalised within these art historical canons – from landscape through to history painting – in 1987 the Tower of London entered into the radical abstract canon of Gerhard Richter. As an artist who has sought a relentless and almost clinical rebuttal of representational painting within an age of photographic image distribution, Richter’s complex and deeply conceptual abstract practice is brought back to an evocation of the art historical past. One year prior to the execution of the present work, Richter stated as much in a conversation with Benjamin Buchloh: “I do see myself as the heir to a vast, great, rich culture of painting – of art in general – which we have lost, but which places obligations on us. And it is no easy matter to avoid either harking back to the past or (equally bad) giving up altogether and sliding into decadence” (Gerhard Richter in conversation with Benjamin H. D. Buchloh (1986) in: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ed., Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, London 1995, p. 148). Intriguingly, Richter’s show at d’Offay also included a suite of landscape paintings, which at first viewing strike the viewer as natural successors to an art historical lineage of British landscape painters as epitomised by Turner, Constable or, as is oft mentioned, the sweeping panoramas of German Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich. This however is to simplify Richter’s highly conceptual relationship with image-making in all of its guises (both representational and abstract), which, rooted in the recognisable tropes of art history (from Romantic landscape painting through to Abstract Expressionism), looks to drive the possibility of painting into the Twenty-first Century.

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Claude Monet The Houses of Parliament, London, with the sun breaking through the fog, 1904. Musée d’Orsay, Paris Image: © Bridgeman Images.

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Tower of London, Tower Hill, London© Ralph Deakin / RIBA Library Photographs Collection.

Though entirely disconnected from referentiality in both method and conception, Richter’s abstractions nevertheless elusively evoke natural forms and colour configurations. As outlined by the artist: “The paintings gain their life from our desire to recognise something in them. At every point they suggest similarities with real appearances, which then, however, never really materialize” (Gerhard Richter quoted in: Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 267). Thwarting the artist’s own compositional preconceptions, these works are forged by a reactive and aleatory dialogue via the means of their execution: the squeegee. The layered excavation and resonant accumulation of gossamer colour imparts an eroded surface reminiscent of myriad natural forms. Like a sunset, glorious and luminescent in reflecting the chromatic intensity of stunning optical effects, Richter’s canvas evokes the beauty frequently called forth by the contingency of natural phenomena: “amid the paintings’ scraped and layered pigments” describes Robert Storr, “shoals, riptides and cresting waves” reinforce an impression of venturing beyond abstraction (Robert Storr quoted in: Dietmar Elgar, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. XIII). Such a reading is very much linked to Richter’s methodological dialogue with chance. Dragged across an expanse of canvas the pressure and speed of Richter’s application ultimately surrenders to the unpredictability of chance in informing composition and colour. It is this separation of the artist from direct expression that bestows Richter’s paintings with their inherently natural look. The shimmering and harmoniously artful orchestration of paint within A B, Brick Tower vacillates between an act of intense evocation and a simultaneous effacement of painterly form: ingrained within the present work’s destructive and unpredictable formation is an undeniable reflection of Nature itself. As outlined by Beate Söntgen; Richter’s method “joins the painted traces of the tools together with the layering and intersections of colour to form structures that are figural or landscape like in appearance, without ever solidifying into an object that is once again recognizable” (Beate Söntgen, ‘Work on the Picture: The Discretion of Gerhard Richter’, in: Exhibition Catalogue, Cologne, Museum Ludwig, Gerhard Richter: Abstrakte Bilder, 2008-09, p. 37). 

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Gerhard Richter, Königstein, 1987. Private Collection© Gerhard Richter, 2015

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Royal Ms 16 F II, f.73: Tower of London and shipping, with Charles, Duke of Orléans, seated in the Tower writing, from Poems of Charles, Duke of Orléanscirca 1500. British Library, London. Image: © Bridgeman Images

Comparative in both beauty and effect to Monet’s atmospheric and optical translation of his garden at Giverny or even his depiction of the Houses of Parliament across the River Thames, Richter’s A B, Brick Tower is nonetheless analogous to a wholesale inversion of the Impressionist master’s late practice. Correspondingly expansive, enveloping and utterly breathing colour, Richter shares Monet’s tropospheric yet abyssal chromatic impact. In the work of both it is the cognitive and sensory act of looking informed by a dense chromatic structure that drives visual affect. Clement Greenberg identified this as Impressionism’s most revolutionary insight, and it is this which Richter invokes and advances in his Abstracts. Where for Monet, nature was a point of departure to link the experiential stimulus of the outer world with an ineffable inner world of sensory perception, Richter’s outwardly incomprehensible plane of abstraction projects the interior world of sensory perception back into the exterior realm of natural reference. Rather than a perceptual and intensely subjective documentation of nature that verges on the abstract, Richter’s exercise in ostensibly objective and pure abstraction skirts the peripheries of a lyrical and expressive organic topography. Herein, Richter’s A B, Brick Tower, guised in the fuzz of televisual distortion, presents the viewer with an abyssal and chromatically resplendent vista, an approach to painting that, in echoing the title of Fondation Beyeler exhibition in which this painting was included, awards Richter the distinctly twenty-first century title of Digital Impressionist.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 01 JUILLET 2015, 7:00 PM BST - LONDRES

Mazzoleni Art at Masterpiece London 2015

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Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attesa, 1966

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attesa, 1966Price on request. Courtesy Mazzoleni Art.

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attesa, 1967

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attesa, 1967Price on request. Courtesy Mazzoleni Art.

 

Roman Ribbed Glass Jar, Roman Empire, probably Levant, ca. 1st to 3rd centuries CE

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Roman Ribbed Glass Jar, Roman Empire, probably Levant, ca. 1st to 3rd centuries CE. Estimate $800 – $1,200. Artemis Gallery image.

 An absolutely stunning glass jar! Mold made from yellow-green glass with repeating ribs down rounded base, tall neck and rolled rim. The iridescence on this one is off the charts! Size: 3-1/4"H. 

Provenance: Ex-private Metzger collection.

Artemis Gallery. Ancient / Ethnographic Early Summer Variety 

Ecran de lettré (ou de table) , Vietnam , dynastie des Nguyên, première moitié du XIXe siècle

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 Ecran de lettré (ou de table) à six feuilles et décor appliqué de plaquettes d'os aux scènes d'immortels, Vietnam , dynastie des Nguyên, première moitié du XIXe siècle, portant la marque apocryphe du deuxième Empereur Vietnamien Minh Mang (明命) qui gouverna le pays de 1820 à 1841 (Minh Mang Nian Zhi 明命年制). Estimation 1 000 € / 1 200 €. Photo Boisgirard Antonini, Nice.

Orné sur ses deux faces : sur la première de panneaux ajourés en os portant portant traces de polychromie (rehauts rouge) à décor d'immortels, de pins, de bananiers, de pavillons et de déesses au registre médian, de caractères shou flanqués de quatre chauve-souris au registre sommital ; sur la seconde, d'un pêcheur, d'une meiren, d'un lettré dans sa pagode, d'un garçon bouvier, de prunus, saule pleureur, lotus, érable et bananier (petits manques et accidents, une plaque d'os mal recollée en partie sommitale, une charnière cassée). H: 36,3 cm - L (totale approximative): 57,7 cm 

"Nous remercions M. Alain TRUONG pour son aimable assistance aux fins d'expertise."

A FINE WOODEN SIX-LEAF SCHOLAR / TABLE SCREEN APPLIED WITH RETICULATED BONE PLAQUES WITH A DECOR OF IMMORTALS , Vietnam, Nguyen Dynasty, First half of 19th century, Inscribed with the apoxcryphal Imperial mark of Minh Mang, the second Vietnamese Emperor whom ran the country from 1820 to 1841 (Minh Mang Nian Zhi)

BOISGIRARD ANTONINI NICE, le 26 Juin 2015 à 10h et 14h30


Belle robe de fonctionnaire à décor de dragons à 5 griffes dans les nuages à la recherche de la perle enflammée

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Belle robe de fonctionnaire à décor de dragons à 5 griffes dans les nuages à la recherche de la perle enflamméeEstimation 3 000 € / 4 000 €. Photo Limoges Enchères

 ( manches coupées) . On y joint un chapeau de mandarin ( manque la plume). Hauteur de la robe 140 cm.  

LIMOGES ENCHÈRES, Vente de Prestige, le 27 Juin 2015 à 14h

Paire de chaussures d'intérieur d'homme, Second Empire

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Paire de chaussures d'intérieur d'homme, Second EmpireEstimation 250 € / 350 €. Photo Palas SVV

en satin prune brodé soie polychrome sur l'empeigne d'un bouquet noué de pivoines, doublure et semelle intérieur en chevreau, semelle en cuir, (quelques usures au talon). 

PALAIS SVV, Objets d'Art, Mobilier & Design, le 27 Juin 2015 à 14h

Paire de mules brodées, fin du XIXe siècle

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Paire de mules brodées, fin du XIXe siècleEstimation 80 € / 130 €. Photo Palas SVV

en velours vert à décor brodé en perles de verre multicolores de mammifères encadrant un arbre fleuri, (petits manques).

PALAIS SVV, Objets d'Art, Mobilier & Design, le 27 Juin 2015 à 14h

Paire de pantoufles de dame, Second-Empire

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Paire de pantoufles de dame, Second-EmpireEstimation 200 € / 300 €. Photo Palas SVV

en velours noir brodé soie polychrome de guirlandes de fleurs et d'un nid d'oiseaux sur l'empeigne, doublure en chevreau semelle et talon en cuir, (usures). 

PALAIS SVV, Objets d'Art, Mobilier & Design, le 27 Juin 2015 à 14h

Pierre Sterlé, Parure Vannerie, années 1955

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Pierre Sterlé, Parure Vannerie, années 1955Estimation 30 000 € / 35 000 €. Photo Tajan

Elle se compose d'une part d'un collier draperie retenant des pampilles en forme de feuilles pavées de diamants taille brillant et d'un bracelet articulé au modèle. Monture en or jaune 18K et platine également rehaussée de diamants. Travail français signé STERLE Paris, numéroté et poinçon de maître. Poids brut : 177,1 gr. Dimensions : Bracelet : 15,4 x 3 cm - Collier : 34 cm environ 

A diamond, gold and platinum set comprising a bracelet and a necklace by STERLE, circa 1955.

TAJAN, Importants Bijoux, le 29 Juin 2015 à 14h

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