NEW YORK, NY.- The return of Classic Week to January totaled $92,434,360 over 10 sales, seven of them live.
OLD MASTERS
From paintings and sculpture to works on paper, Old Masters accounted for the majority of the week’s total, realizing $76,635,088. Remastered: Old Masters from the Collection of J.E. Safra, showed the power of the no-reserve strategy, earning $18,525,600, with a bound group of drawings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry for the famous Fables of Jean de La Fontaine leading the sale at $2.7 million, almost twice its low estimate. Old Masters brought $44,251,060 in total and the top lot was Francisco de Goya’s Portrait of Doña María Vicenta Barruso Valdés and Portrait of her mother Doña Leonora Antonia Valdés de Barruso, which made $16,420,000, smashing the previous record for Goya. Modern Medici: Masterpieces from a New York Collection brought $9,594,840, and two sculptures in the sale were acquired by major museums: Bronze Figure of an Écorché Man, cast from a model by Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for $1,500,000; Bronze Group of Apollo Flaying Marsyas, to the Cleveland Museum of Art for $882,000. The highlight of the Old Master & British Drawings sale was Johannes Wierix’s Creation and Early History of Man in twenty scenes, a series of pen on vellum drawings that made $403,000. The Old Master and 19th Century Prints sale was led by a brilliant and early impression of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, Christ crucified between two thieves: ‘The Three Crosses,’ which exceeded its high estimate, making $730,800. Old Master Paintings and Sculpture Online was led by The Death of Camilla Le Barbier L'ainé, which brought $302,400.
THE EXCEPTIONAL SALE
Christie’s live auction of the best of the best in decorative and applied arts, singular works of historic importance, and iconic objects of pop culture, totaled $5,589,240. The top lot was ‘The Arizona Spike,’ made in 1869 to commemorate the completion of the world’s first Transcontinental Railroad, which fetched 740% of its estimate to bring $2,200,000.
PRINTED AND MANUSCRIPT AMERICANA & SCIENCE
This online auction featured a wide-ranging selection of scientific books and letters, as well as significant pieces of Americana, totaled, $3,777,228. An autograph letter by the Nobel-prize-winning biophysicist Maurice Wilkins discussing his colleagues in discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, led the sale, fetching $327,600
ANTIQUITIES
With buyers taking part from North America, Central America, Europe, China, and the Middle East, and active participation from new bidders, this sale totaled $4,721,346. The sale was led by a pair of Roman Marble Strigulated Vases that brought $466,200, against a low estimate of $150,000.
EUROPEAN ART
A curated selection of works from one of the most diverse and revolutionary eras in the history of art, this sale spanned the years following the French Revolution to the early 20th century’s Art Nouveau style, totaling $1,569,088. The top lot by value was Jules Joseph Lefebvre’s Odalisque, which made $138,600.
