Broadcast journalist Barbara Walters displayed two photographs in a gold frame in the living room where she entertained heads of state and celebrities. One of them was a commissioned portrait of herself in a luxurious gown. Another one of hers is a painting of a stoic Egyptian woman wearing a black scarf, painted in 1891 by one of the most beloved painters in American history, John Singer Her Sargent. It was produced.
After the iconic interviewer passed away last year, her family kept her portrait and unveiled Sargent as part of an $8 million trove of art, jewelry and dresses at Bonhams on Nov. 6. We have decided to sell it, and an online sale will be held from October. And while Sargent's painting is the most prolific piece in the collection and carries a high estimate of $1.8 million, another portrait of a woman from Sargent's trip to Egypt is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, the auctioneer sees Walters' fans engage in bidding wars for less famous items such as cutlery and serving plates.
Celebrity memorabilia and memorabilia sales dominate the upcoming auction season, from the sale of Elton John artwork and a piano that will go on sale at Christie's early next year to a Madonna photo that will hit the company's auction block next month. major shippers are waiting to see if the economy will weaken. The art market will recover. Experts say the prognosis looks grim, given the lackluster performance of spring auctions and a recent string of disappointments at art fairs in September.
“The market is based on confidence,” Bonhams CEO Bruno Vinciguerra said. “And because of global tensions and interest rates, we have a lot of uncertainty.”
Natasha Degen, director of art market research at the Fashion Institute of Technology, attributes the surge in celebrity sales in recent years to their “unparalleled ability to attract attention and thereby drive up prices.” Ta.
“When auction houses are having trouble acquiring prime, record-breaking pieces, the sale of a celebrity estate can certainly garner media attention and generate public interest,” Degen explained.
So far this fall, nothing comparable to the 2022 Paul G. Allen Art Collection Gangbuster Twin Estate Sale has materialized. Christie's sold five paintings for more than $100 million, including works by Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne. And Gustav Klimt.
The best works will go on sale at Sotheby's on November 8th and 9th. The auction house has announced a fall season of Picasso paintings valued at more than $120 million from the estate of philanthropist and arts patron Emily Fisher Landau. If that price is achieved for “Femme à la Montre,” it would be the second-highest price ever sold by Picasso at auction, nearly $60 million behind another painting that sold in 2015. There will be no.
Buyers and sellers may have had a collective hangover from the fall's spending spree. When the spring auction season ended in May, modern masterpieces by artists like Warhol, Picasso and Lichtenstein were noticeably absent. Three Jasper Johns paintings sold at Christie's in the same month failed to reach their low estimates, perhaps indicating that the estimates were still too high or that demand had been misjudged.
Sotheby's Chief Executive Officer Charles F. Stewart said in an interview with the New York Times at the time that the market was facing a shortage problem. “Collectors who can hold onto them for a long time will do so,” he said. “And even if they do come, it's going to be a relatively small group of people who can afford it.”
With the ultra-wealthy on the bench, the real strength of this year's auctions may be in real estate sales, with prices ranging from the thousands of dollars to the low millions of dollars and more bidders. I will be participating. And when a consignment from a celebrity arrives, the battle over the memorabilia heats up.
A recent Sotheby's auction of rock vocalist Freddie Mercury's heirlooms nearly quadrupled its original high price of $14.2 million to $50.4 million. The company said it received more than 41,800 bids for 1,406 lots. It had the highest number of bidders in nearly 20 years since the 2004 sale of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' estate.
Star of the show? A silver mustache comb the size of a little finger. The collectible was originally priced at a hefty $760, but with buyer's fees his price rose to nearly $194,000, outselling some paintings in the musician's collection. Other big-ticket items far exceeded estimates, including a neon phone that cost him $51,000, 29 cat ornaments that cost him $39,000, and a generic poetry book that cost him $89,000.
“It's important to find a story that people love,” said Gabriel Heaton, a specialist who worked on the sale. “One of the things people love about Freddie is that he never tries to take himself completely seriously. And the mustache comb says it all, as does the amazing mustache at the auction entrance. .”
This sale was a reminder of how much celebrities value the everyday. Even a collection of seashells and beach pebbles sold for $7,000 last November when Steer Galleries held an estate sale in Hudson, New York, for author Joan Didion. These sales clearly left an impression. The small auctioneer has since put other properties up for sale, including the collection of actor Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward, and the collection of fashion editor Andre Leon Talley. (Christie's sale of Talley's holdings resulted in a profit of $1.4 million.)
Earlier this week, the auction house sold Wilt Chamberlain's gold Los Angeles Lakers jersey, which sold for $4.9 million, including fees. French actor Gerard Depardieu's art collection also sold for $4.2 million at auction house Adele.
Despite the relatively low total estimate of $8 million for the Barbara Walters Collection, major auction houses competed for deals over the summer. (Christie's lost the Walters Collection to Bonhams, a small firm specializing in real estate sales.)
“We're good at making the most of famous collections,” Bonhams CEO Vinciguerra said. “Our sales room will look like a history book with pictures of Barbara everywhere.”
The company hopes to repeat its success selling Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's library. Bonhams estimated the collection's value at $60,000, but it ultimately sold for $2.4 million.
“What we're talking about is not necessarily unique, but she was someone who was respected and loved in this country,” Vinciguerra explained.
“Even if these auctions don't bring in as much profit as regularly scheduled art sales, they can draw attention to an auction house and help polish its brand,” said art market expert Degen. he pointed out.
Bonhams hopes Walters' fans will compete for a zebra-print upholstered armchair and a commemorative vase honoring the 1,000th episode of the morning talk show “The View.”
Some of the jewelry on sale is very personal. Among them is an engagement ring given to her by TV producer Marv Adelson, whom Walters married and divorced twice between 1981 and 1992. The ring and its 13.84-carat emerald-cut diamond are valued at a whopping $900,000.
“Our home was always filled with funny and beautiful memories that reminded us of her incredibly diverse life,” Walters' daughter Jacqueline Danforth said in a statement. “It will be a comfort to know that these pieces, which were so important to her, will be enjoyed and cared for.”
