This was 73 per cent sold by lot en-route to a hammer total of just over €1.8m (£1.27m), around 15 per cent down on Cornette’s corresponding sale last year.
Zao Wou Ki’s 2ft 8in x 3ft (81 x 90cm) 1996 Composition, right, sold near its top estimate at €78,000 (£55,000). Yan Pei Ming’s 1997 pink and red Mao portrait, right, Portrait de Timonier No. 3, 4ft 3in x 3ft 2in (1.30m x 97cm), went to a double-estimate €37,000 (£26,060).
Top price at Cornette was the €105,000 (£74,000) bid for a 3ft 5in (1.04m) Valsuani casting of César’s Vénus de Villetaneuse,
numbered 5/6.
The sale included 26 lots put in for sale by the Banque Worms. All but two sold, to yield €560,000 (£394,000) hammer, led by Nam June Paik’s 1988 TV Beuys/Bogie, a mixed technique work incorporating four video monitors. Measuring
8ft x 7ft (2.44 x 2.14m), it took a
mid-estimate €70,000 (£49,300).
A 1982 Basquiat Untitled,
wax crayon on paper 22in x 2ft 6in (55 x 76cm), made €67,000 (£47,200) but his Size Nine (1984-85), produced in collaboration with Andy Warhol and expected to lead the sale with around €300,000, failed to sell.
Basquiat’s 1981 Black Door,
estimated at €200,000-250,000, and Warhol’s 1964 silk screen
portrait of Jackie (Kennedy),
estimated at €260,000-280,000, were also unsold.
The Chinese connection continues at the Paris salerooms
THE Chinese-born, French-based artists Zao Wou-Ki and Yan Pei Ming, who both featured among the successes at FIAC Paris, were also in demand at the sale staged by Cornette de St-Cyr (20.33/11.96% buyer’s premium) at Drouot Montaigne on the evening of October 11.
