Sotheby’s next big Impressionist and Modern Art sale

Sotheby’s next big Impressionist and Modern Art sale in New York next month is led by an evening sale which is estimated to fetch at least $117 million. 23 of the 68 works in that sale, including paintings by Monet, Degas, Picasso and Modigliani are described as coming from ’an Important European Collection.’ The most valuable is van Dongen’s ’Jeune Arabe’ (pictured), from 1910 which is estimated at $7 million to 10 million dollars. Altogether the works have a minimum combined estimate of $37 million, or one third of the value of the whole sale.

In its lower value day sale, a further nine works from the same collection bring the low estimate for the whole consignment to some $40 million.

According to trade sources, the collection is that of embattled Dutch investor, Louis Reijtenbagh. The son of a farmer, Reijtenbagh worked as a family doctor but made a fortune from trading in stocks in the 1980’s. Last year he was rated as one of Holland’s 50 wealthiest individuals. But recently his business empire has been entangled in a web of debt amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Last May, accompanied by representatives of JP Morgan Chase, which had secured a court order to recover artworks which had been used as collateral for a loan, deputy sheriffs in New York removed an estimated 29 paintings belonging to Reijtenbagh, valued at some $23 million, from an apartment in the Trump Tower.

Sales in the million dollar (£600,000) range at the Frieze Art fair were few and far between as dealers generally pitched their sights much lower. The majority of sales were typically in the five figure range, and there were plenty of them. Thomas Dane, for instance, completely sold out on day one of the fair of works by Glenn Ligon, Kelley Walker, Michael Landy and others, with prices all under $65,000. Anthony Wilkinson likewise achieved multiple sales for his artists, George Shaw and Jedd Quinn. Heading the price list at the end of the week was a 12 foot high aluminium sculpture of an embracing couple by Louise Bourgeois that was hanging in Regents Park and part of the Frieze fair’s outdoor sculpture programme. Priced at $3.5 million, it was sold by the Hauser and Wirth Gallery to a private European collector.

Tough guy actor Mickey Rourke is known for many things, but collecting art is not one of them. Having come back from a series of financial set backs, though, Rourke was amongst the buyers at a new exhibition by Russian artist VitaliV (aka Vitali Vinogradov) which recently opened at the Maverick Showroom in Shoreditch, East London. VitaliV has followed many paths in his life having once sold second hand photo copy machines to Russia, and founded the TV3 network in Russia – all of which helped to support his artistic career. His latest works are inspired by patterns found inside a microchip and were selling in the region of £5,500 each.

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5. Christie’s Amasses $65.67 Million in a Sparse Impressionist Sale