- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Giacometti breaks auction record at Sotheby's
- Date: 5th February 2010
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE - JANUARY 12, 2010) (REUTERS) ROOM SHOWING ARTWORKS UP FOR AUCTION IN IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART SALE AT SOTHEBY'S INCLUDING SCULPTURE 'L'HOMME QUI MARCHE I' BY ALBERTO GIACOMETTI HEAD OF SCULPTURE 'L'HOMME QUI MARCHE I' CLOSE ON FACE OF GIACOMETTI SCULPTURE SCULPTURE'S HEAD IN PROFILE SCULPTURE IN FRONT/ TILT DOWN TO FEET OF SCULPTURE CLOSE ON GIACOMETTI'S NAME ON SCULPTURE CLOSE ON HANDS OF SCULPTURE WIDE OF SCULPTURE PULL OUT FROM DETAILS OF 'KIRCHE IN CASSONE - LANDSCHAFT MIT ZYPRESSEN (CHURCH IN CASSONE - LANDSCAPE WITH CYPRESSES) BY GUSTAV KLIMT KLIMT'S SIGNATURE ON PAINTING EXTERIOR OF SOTHEBY'S AT NIGHT
- Embargoed: 20th February 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
- Reuters ID: LVA8S7IC8BIC8R25FH9FW11UPKNN
- Story Text: A bronze statue by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti broke the record for a work of art at auction on Wednesday (February 3), selling for 65 million pounds (104.3 million U.S. dollars) at Sotheby's in London.
The price, which includes buyer's premium, just eclipsed Picasso's "Garcon a la Pipe", which fetched 104.2 million U.S. dollars in New York in 2004.
The life-size "L'homme qui marche I" (Walking Man I) was the first time a Giacometti figure of a walking man on such a large scale had come to auction in over 20 years, and its hammer price was around four times the auctioneer's pre-sale expectations.
The statue was sold by German banking firm Commerzbank AG, which acquired it when it took over Dresdner Bank in 2009. Dresdner acquired the sculpture in 1980.
The record was reached in just eight minutes of "fast and furious" bidding, Sotheby's said, with at least 10 potential purchasers battling it out for the rare work in a hushed sale room.
Sotheby's did not identify the buyer, saying only that it was an anonymous telephone bidder.
The result confirms what recent auction results had already suggested -- that the art market has recovered from a shaky year when the financial crisis hit prices as well as the volume of works changing hands, without causing a full-scale collapse.
In the same impressionist and modern art sale, a rare landscape by Gustav Klimt fetched 26.9 million pounds (43.2 million USD), well above its pre-sale estimate of 12-18 million pounds.
The 1913 painting "Kirche in Cassone" once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian iron magnate and collector Victor Zuckerkandl and his wife Paula, but when the Jewish couple died childless in 1927 it was left to Viktor's sister.
She died in the Holocaust and the painting went missing during the Nazi period, only to resurface at an exhibition decades later.
In one of the most important restitution cases for several years, the painting was offered for sale following an agreement between the European private collector who owned it and Georges Jorisch, the 81-year-old great nephew of the original owner.
Sotheby's raised 146.8 million pounds from the auction overall, far beyond expectations of 69-102 million pounds and the highest total for any auction in London. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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