Juffali collection is white-glove success
The collection of the late Saudi billionaire Walid Juffali (1955- 2016) sold out at Bonhams in a white-glove sale last week. A highlight of the 414-lot auction was Fernando Botero’s monumental bronze sculptures Adam and Eve which sold at £1.7m (£2.05m with premium) after eight bidders battled it out on the phones.
The price is well above the £600,000-800,000 estimate and set an auction record for the artist.
The sale took place on site at the Juffali home, a 42-acre estate on the edge of Windsor Great Park at Bishopsgate House near Egham, Surrey, on March 26. The objects sold were from Juffali’s three properties in England.
The auction ran for a mammoth 10-and-a-half-hours, taking a premium-inclusive total of £7.14m.
TimeLine sales move to new venue
Coins and antiquities specialist TimeLine Auctions will hold its next sale at a new Londo venue. The May 22-26 catalogue will be the first at the Crystal Room in The May Fair Hotel, W1, home to events such as London Fashion Week.
Previous sales conducted by the Essex-based firm were held at the Emmanuel Centre, Westminster. Entries were being accepted until April 3.
Brancusi sculpture tipped as new high
Christie’s New York May 15 sale of Impressionist and Modern Art is tipped to bring a new record for Constantin Brancusi. The sculptor’s La Jeune fille sophistiquée (Nancy Cunard), the only existing bronze example of this stylised portrait of the Anglo-American heiress, comes for sale from the collection of Elizabeth Stafford.
Constantin Brancusi’s 'La Jeune fille sophistiquée' (Nancy Cunard) is on offer at Christie’s on May 15.
She and her husband Frederick Stafford, a fellow Romanian, acquired the much-exhibited 1932 cast with its hand-carved marble base from Brancusi during a visit to his studio in 1955. It carries an ‘estimate upon request’.
Mossgreen court case is adjourned
The court hearing in Sydney over the Mossgreen administrator’s charges opened on March 29, but was adjourned due to the number of lawyers and self-representing vendors giving evidence.
The hearing, related to the Australian auction house which went into administration in December, is likely to resume this week.
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Sotheby’s launches staff share scheme
Sotheby’s has announced a share scheme for staff which it says will benefit 98% of its employees.
Each year, Sotheby’s board of directors will review company performance and assess whether these ‘restricted stock units’ will be granted.
Sotheby’s has 1662 employees in total based in 80 different locations and all of those eligible will be automatically enrolled on the scheme. In the UK, it has 533 staff and the company confirmed that all permanent employees who have not already received stock grants this year will be awarded restricted stock units as part of this programme.
The company has operated an equity programme for senior executives for many years.
In Numbers
74,000
The number of UK war memorials listed on the searchable register now live on the Imperial War Museum website. The driving force behind the project was Dr Alan Borg, director general of the IWM from 1982-95.
Forty-nine lots from his personal collection were offered at the 25 Blythe Road saleroom last week, including drawings and watercolours relating to First World War memorials.
