Copy of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker – estimate €9m-14m at Christie’s Paris.
Image: Nina Slavcheva
Rodin’s Thinker cast on offer
Christie’s in Paris is to offer a copy of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. The bronze sculpture has an estimate of €9m-14m at the auction on June 30. Cast c.1928 by the Alexis Rudier foundry, it is part of a private collection titled Le Grand Style from a Parisian apartment designed by the famous decorator Alberto Pinto.
Fair chairman Hewat-Jaboor dies
Philip Hewat-Jaboor, chairman of Masterpiece London, has died after a short illness. He started his career in 1972 at Sotheby’s Belgravia and later worked as a consultant championing the decorative arts. He had been chairman at Masterpiece London since 2012.
Two art advisory firms collaborate
Art advisory firms Schwartzman& and The Fine Art Group plan to collaborate on advisory services for clients.
The firms, run by Allan Schwartzman and Philip Hoffman respectively, will collaborate on specific areas including valuations, collection development, investment opportunities and philanthropic giving.
The idea of the collaboration took hold when Jan Prasens joined The Fine Art Group in September 2021 as deputy chairman. Previously at Sotheby’s, Prasens worked closely with Schwartzman during his more than two decades there.
While the collaboration does not include any financial investments or ownership stakes, The Fine Art Group’s New York-based team will share space with Schwartzman& at its office in Manhattan.
Antiques Roadshow locations revealed
The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow has released the locations for the recording of its programmes this summer.
They are: Wollaton Hall, Nottingham; Brodie Castle, Morayshire; Sefton Park Palm House, Liverpool; Clissold Park, London; Belmont House, Faversham; Powis Castle and Garden, Welshpool and The Eden Project, Cornwall.
However, unlike previous years, the events will be ticketed. These can be applied for online.
The show’s producers said those wishing to bring an item can submit their story online. For more information visit the Antiques Roadshow website.
Picasso painting of muse up for auction
A large-scale painting by Pablo Picasso of his muse and lover Marie-Thérèse Walter is to be offered with an estimate of in excess of $60m at Sotheby’s Modern Evening auction on May 17 in New York.
Painted in 1932, Femme nue couchée is one of the most valuable portraits of Marie- Thérèse Walter ever offered at auction.
Herts saleroom makes a short move
Cadmore Auctions in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, has relocated nearby to its former site.
It has moved from Darkes Lane to 3 Station Close. The next sales will take place on April 18, 19 and 28.
Congrats: it’s a receipt for nothing
Receipt for the Yves Klein Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle série n°1, zone n°02 (receipt to Jacques Kugel).
A receipt granting ownership to an invisible work of art by artist Yves Klein sold for a hammer price of €850,000 (£710,000), or €1.1m including buyer’s premium, at Sotheby’s Paris.
Klein (1928-62) sold a small number of these zones of empty space (the Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle) in return for a weight of pure gold, between the first creation of the piece in 1959 to his death in 1962.
Fewer than a handful of receipts are believed to have survived – not least because the artist offered the purchasers the option to participate in a piece of performative art: a ritual in which the buyer would burn the receipt, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the Seine to rebalance the “natural order” that he had unbalanced through the sale of the space.
At the April 6 sale it carried a guide of €280,000-500,000. The vendor was art adviser and curator Loic Malle, who owned it for 35 years, and it was one of the 100 lots from his collection which totalled a premium-inclusive €3.3m (£2.75m).
The new owner acquired the receipt and Klein’s invisible work of art.
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In Numbers
100
The number of years the Lalique factory in Wingen-sur-Moder, north-eastern France, has been in operation. René Lalique moved his family to the area and opened the factory in 1922. His former home nearby is now a hotel and restaurant and the French state-run Musée Lalique is in the same village.
