- Title: UK: DEGAS BRONZE FIGURINE SOLD FOR 5 MILLION POUNDS STERLING AT AUCTION IN LONDON
- Date: 3rd February 2004
- Summary: (L!1) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (FEBRUARY 3, 2004) (REUTERS) VARIOUS AUCTION IN PROGRESS PEOPLE BIDDING DEGAS FIGURINE BEING AUCTIONED CLOSEUP DEGAS FIGURINE (SOUNDBITE) (English) HELENA NEWMAN, SENIOR DIRECTOR, IMPRESSIONIST&MODERN ART DEPARTMENT, SOTHEBY'S, SAYING "This particular cast comes from an anonymous collection. There are in total around 26 casts of this bronze. Most of them are now in major museums collections. So it is rare for a piece like this to appear at auction." VARIOUS CLOSEUPS OF DEGAS' PETITE DANSEUSE DE QUATORZE ANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) HELENA NEWMAN, SENIOR DIRECTOR, IMPRESSIONIST&MODERN ART DEPARTMENT, SOTHEBY'S, SAYING "This girl Marie was known to Degas and when he first showed the wax model in the exhibition of 1881 it was received with enormous shock and horror by the public becasue it was so lifelike and so immediate in terms of the straining of the muscles and the sheer modernity and in a way naked reality of this piece was very very shocking for that time - now it's considered one of the most beautiful Impressionist sculptures there is but at the time it was quite a shock to the audience." VARIOUS CLOSEUPS OF DEGAS' PETITE DANSEUSE DE QUATORZE ANS (SOUNDBITE) (English) HELENA NEWMAN, SENIOR DIRECTOR, IMPRESSIONIST&MODERN ART DEPARTMENT, SOTHEBY'S, ANSWERING WHETHER THE WEAK U.S. DOLLAR HAS AFFECTED NUMBERS OF AMERICAN BIDDERS, SAYING: "I think people fracture it into their bidding but ultimately for really serious connoisseur collectors, when they see a piece they fall in love with and they want they will bid and they are not deterred and I mean we've seen all sorts of types of fluctuations over the decades in the art markets and usually pictures will find their price levels and because the market is very much driven by collectors, serious collectors at the moment I don't expect major effect on the prices." VARIOUS OF MONET'S VETHEUIL, APRES-MIDI D'AUTOMNE VARIOUS PICASSO'S FEMME ASSISE AU CHAPEAU DE PAILLE VARIOUS ALBERTO GIACOMETTI'S FEMME DEBOUT
- Embargoed: 18th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
- City:
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Arts,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA8W6KXC6BRPXMGJ11MS4ASJMOL
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: A Degas bronze figurine has been sold for over 5,000, 000 pound Sterling at auction in London.
Amongst the highlights of Tuesday's (February 3) Impressionist and Modern Art sale was Edgar Degas's (1834-1917) Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans, a bronze of a young ballet dancer -- the artist's most famous image.
It was originally executed in wax and exhibited in the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881. After Degas' death, 27 examples were cast in bronze of which only a handful now remain in private hands. The example included in Sotheby's sale has not been on the market for a generation and fetched 5,045,600. (four million fivehundred pounds under the hammer).
"This girl Marie was known to Degas and when he first showed the wax model in the exhibition of 1881 it was received with enormous shock and horror by the public becasue it was so lifelike and so immediate in terms of the straining of the muscles and the sheer modernity and in a way naked reality of this piece was very very shocking for that time - now it's considered one of the most beautiful Impressionist sculptures there is but at the time it was quite a shock to the audience", said Helena Newman, one of Sotheby's senior directors.
The weak US Dollars did not deter American bidders to try their luck for one of the desired objects. Earlier, Helena Newman said "I think people fracture it into their bidding but ultimately for really serious connoisseur collectors, when they see a piece they fall in love with and they want they will bid and they are not deterred and I mean we've seen all sorts of types of fluctuations over the decades in the art markets and usually pictures will find thier price levels and because the market is very much driven by collectors, serious collectors at the moment I don't expect major effect on the prices."
Other outstanding pieces included Claude Monet's (1840- 1926) series paintings. In 1878 the artist executed a series of several views of the small village of Vtheuil.
Beautifully situated along the Seine between the city of Mantes and the town of Vernon, Vtheuil was home to Monet and his family between 1878-80. In 1901 Monet returned to Vtheuil and painted another series of views of the village at different times and seasons, including Vtheuil, aprs-midi d'automne which fetched 2, 749, 600.
Monet's re-investigation of this subject over 20 years later demonstrates a shift in his aesthetic objectives. His concern focused primarily on the effects of natural light and led him to create a work that prefigures later developments in 20th-century modern art, particularly abstraction.
The sale also included a number of works by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Femme assise au chapeau de paille is one of the most appealing and alluring of his many portraits of Marie-Thrse Walter. It is one of three related portraits of her that Picasso painted on 2nd and 3rd July 1938 and interestingly, all three remained in the artist's private collection at his villa in the south of France, La Californie, until at least the early 1960s.
Picasso met Marie-Thrse in 1927, when she was seventeen, and she became his mistress and muse for more than a decade. The painting is fetched 2, 469, 600.
Another outstanding sculpture was Alberto Giacometti's (1901-66) bronze Femme Debout executed in 1949 and cast in 1956. This important work was from the Estate of Nelly and Werner Br, Swiss collectors who amassed an extraordinary collection of works by artists such as Giacometti, Maillol, Laurens, Lipchitz, Lehmbruck, Henry Moore, Matisse and the young Picasso.
After the death of her husband in 1960, Nelly Br decided to donate one part of the collection to the Kunsthaus in Zurich where it is now housed in the "Werner und Nelly Br Saal". The Giacometti bronze is one of a number of works sold at Sotheby's which have been drawn from the remainder of the collection. Only four bronzes from this edition were cast during his lifetime, of which this is one. It fetched 1, 909, 600. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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