Tagore Works Lead Sotheby's South Asian Art Sale to $8.2 Million

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Published by Louise Chen

Originally published on artinfo.com, June 19, 2010

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/market-news/article/34923-tagore-works-lead-sothebys-south-asian-art-sale-to-82-million

Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore headlined the South Asian Art Sale in London last night, not with his famous manuscripts, but with 12 paintings that fetched £1.6 million ($2.37 million), massively exceeding their £250,000 ($370,000) estimate. The evening sale, which also featured works by prominent South Asian artists Raza, Souza, and Chandra, managed a 78 percent sell-through rate and brought in £5.5 million ($8.2 million) for the house.

Other highlights of the auction included Haider Raza's Rajasthan,which went for £527,250 ($780,000). Last week, Christie's London sold Raza’s Saurashtra for an artist-record $3.4 million.

Of the 12 Tagore lots on offer from the Dartington Hall Collection of Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst,Portrait of a Woman went for £223,250 ($330,000), resetting the artist record achieved when his Death Scene sold for £144,500 ($214,000) at Sotheby's in 2008. The ink-on-paper work Lady with a Fan — purportedly a portrait of Lady Ranu Mukherjee, a famed Indian socialite and a close friend of Tagore in his twilight years — earned £103,250 ($153,000).

Originally a gift from Tagore to the Elmhirsts 71 years ago, the paintings had been kept in their Dartington Hall Trust in Devon since then. The announcement of the sale generated political tension, due to the belief of some Indian art organizations that the paintings should be returned to India. Before the sale, a senior official from India’s Culture Ministry went to London to press the issue, but Sotheby's officials argued that the Indian government had no legal claim on the paintings. The Indian government did not bid in the auction.

A prominent family with a 300-year history in the country’s culturalrealm, the Tagores played a significant role in the Bengal Renaissance, a social reform movement that began in the late 19th century and ran through the early20th century. A quintessential polymath, Tagore produced 2,000 paintings, composed 2,230 songs, and penned the national anthems for both Bangladeshand India.

After dropping out of law school at University College London, Tagore returned to India, founding the publication Sadhana while managing his family's estate between 1891 and 1895. After achieving success in the arts, he traveled the world as a cultural emissary, influencing authors from Japan's Yasunari Kawabata to France's Andre Gide.

India is currently staging a yearlong celebration of Tagore's 150th birthday, which has triggered a surge in sales of his literary worksin India. In New York, meanwhile, his family name continues on in the form of the Sundaram Tagore gallery in Chelsea, whose eponymous owner, a former director at PaceWildenstein (now Pace), is a descendant of Rabindranath Tagore.

Sotheby's Oceanic and African Art Sale Earns $8.4 Million

By Louise Chen

Originally published on artinfo.com, June, 19, 2010

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/277248/sothebys-oceanic-and-african-art-sale-earns-84-million

Sotheby’s concluded its June sales of Oceanic and African art in Paris on Wednesday, achieving a total of $8,448,741.

Of the 82 lots on offer, 12 works from the collection of Marsha and John Friede spurred a fierce bidding competition, with many pieces exceeding their estimates. The highest-earning work in the sale was an early-19th-century Hembigurea ancestor figure from the Congo, which fetched $1,042,109 above the high estimate of $619,150. This June marks the 50th anniversary of the Congo's independence.

Other top lots included a 42-inch carved female figure by a craftsman of the Inyai-Ewa People, which earned $685,133; the work had previously been in the collection of Douglas Newton, a former curator, who built The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another crouching female figure that had been included in the first show of Oceanic art in the U.S., at Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York in 1934, was sold for $476,897, a price that more than doubled the high estimate. 

Oceanic art has inspired numerous modern masters such as Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti, and Pablo Picasso. The sales in New York last month and Paris on Wednesday showed a continued global interest in collecting this category as they achieved strong prices far exceeding the estimates.

China Adopts New Rules for Auctions of Cultural Relics

By Louise Chen

Originally published on Artinfo.com, July 02, 2010

http://www.blouinartinfo.com/market-news/article/35104-china-adopts-new-rules-for-auctions-of-cultural-relics

Today in China new rules went into effect that are aimed at bringing uniformity to the sale of cultural relics at auction, a practice that has historically been governed by vague and contradictory rules. The new guidelines, codified as the Standard for Auction of Cultural Relics and Art Works, were drafted by the nonprofit organization China Association of Auctioneers (CAA) under the supervision of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

The new regulations define auction terminology and outline standard practices for various parts of the auction process, including consignments, catalog production, and the archiving of auction records. The new standards also reinforce a provision passed by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2003 that requires owners of cultural relics to acquire and provide ownership certificate to auction houses.

The adoption of the new rules marks the end of a three-year process of legal research and investigations of the auction business in China and reached an important milestone in December when the CAA hosted the International Cultural Relics and Art Auction Forum in Beijing, a meeting that made important progress toward finalizing the new rules. That meeting focused on market regulations and strategies for reclaiming stolen cultural treasures, and involved the participation of presidents from international auction houses, experts on cultural relics, and government officials.

In recent years, China has vigorously pursued cultural relics that it believes were removed from the country illegally. One notable case was Christie's sale of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé lastyear, which featured two bronze animal heads taken out of the Old Summer Palace during the 1860 Opium War. In addition, another major efflux of early cultural artifacts took place between 1980s and 1990s as some Chinese families sold their family heirlooms to the foreign collectors.

According to the recent statistic released by deputy mayor of Beijing Cai Fuchao, about 1,000 auctions featuring classical art and cultural relics have been held in the city during the past six years, generating RMB 40 billion ($590 million) in sales. “The capital city has become the market hub of primary artworks & cultural relics in China,” Cai said in a statement. “Ten-thousand pieces of looted cultural relics are estimated to return every year, and the number will be increasing year by year.” With the new Standard, auction officials hope that number will continue to grow.