Austria 2nd page
1772 The Beginning of the Mass
2014 SOLD 580 K£ including premium
In Christian liturgy, the Kyrie is the song that makes the transition between procession and mass. Before entering the church, the faithful require the mercy of the Lord for the unbelievers.
On May 20 in London, Sotheby's sells the autograph manuscript of a Kyrie for four-part chorus and orchestra by Wolfgang 'Amadeus' Mozart, lot 199 estimated £ 300K. This unfinished work includes five pages in four sheets (three pages are blank) on a 23 x 30 cm format with twelve staves per page.
The document is neither signed nor dated. The handwriting analysis dates it precisely in 1772 during a few months spent in Salzburg when Wolfgang was 16.
The missed target of Leopold's trips to Italy with his brilliant son was to obtain for both of them a prestigious musical position in one of the many princely courts. Their come back to Salzburg after the second and penultimate trip coincides unexpectedly with the death of the archbishop who was for nearly twenty years the care taking patron of Leopold.
In Italy, Wolfgang showed the extent of his know how without neglecting religious music. It is logical that sacred music caught the attention of his father and himself during the interregnum at Salzburg.
Unfinished manuscripts are common throughout the career of Wolfgang They demonstrate his continuous attention to his work as a composer.
This manuscript narrowly missed to be lost. In 1938, a Jewish musician from Munich fleeing Nazi Germany purchases it in order to own a property that is more discreet than a big amount of money. He separates the title page certainly with the intention to reassemble the document in South America. The title page disappears when the ship that carried it is torpedoed.
POST SALE COMMENT
The autograph manuscripts in several pages by Mozart have become rare on the market. This one was sold for £ 580K including premium.
On May 20 in London, Sotheby's sells the autograph manuscript of a Kyrie for four-part chorus and orchestra by Wolfgang 'Amadeus' Mozart, lot 199 estimated £ 300K. This unfinished work includes five pages in four sheets (three pages are blank) on a 23 x 30 cm format with twelve staves per page.
The document is neither signed nor dated. The handwriting analysis dates it precisely in 1772 during a few months spent in Salzburg when Wolfgang was 16.
The missed target of Leopold's trips to Italy with his brilliant son was to obtain for both of them a prestigious musical position in one of the many princely courts. Their come back to Salzburg after the second and penultimate trip coincides unexpectedly with the death of the archbishop who was for nearly twenty years the care taking patron of Leopold.
In Italy, Wolfgang showed the extent of his know how without neglecting religious music. It is logical that sacred music caught the attention of his father and himself during the interregnum at Salzburg.
Unfinished manuscripts are common throughout the career of Wolfgang They demonstrate his continuous attention to his work as a composer.
This manuscript narrowly missed to be lost. In 1938, a Jewish musician from Munich fleeing Nazi Germany purchases it in order to own a property that is more discreet than a big amount of money. He separates the title page certainly with the intention to reassemble the document in South America. The title page disappears when the ship that carried it is torpedoed.
POST SALE COMMENT
The autograph manuscripts in several pages by Mozart have become rare on the market. This one was sold for £ 580K including premium.
1773-1774 Nine Symphonies by Mozart
1987 SOLD for £ 2.5M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
The music publisher August Cranz owned three volumes of autograph manuscripts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart assembled by Wolfgang's father Leopold. Volume 1 included a serenade and a march, volume 2 a concerto and three serenades, and volume 3 nine symphonies.
These documents have a common charasteristic : all the dates were crossed out for some unidentified reason, probably to make it believe to another date, perhaps by the composer himself or by someone with access to his estate.
Volume 3 contained the Köchel symphonies 162, 181 to 184 and 199 to 202. According to Köchel, they were composed in 1773 and 1774 and some are located in Salzburg. At that time relations were deteriorating between Mozart, who was not yet 18, and his employer the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg who wanted to restrict his freedom of composition and his travels. An inspection of the dating residues with a x8 magnifying glass, published in 2015 by The Musical Times, is consistent with Köchel's dating.
This volume was sold for £ 2.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 22, 1987. The symphonies are on loan to the Morgan Library in New York and are now individually bound.
These documents have a common charasteristic : all the dates were crossed out for some unidentified reason, probably to make it believe to another date, perhaps by the composer himself or by someone with access to his estate.
Volume 3 contained the Köchel symphonies 162, 181 to 184 and 199 to 202. According to Köchel, they were composed in 1773 and 1774 and some are located in Salzburg. At that time relations were deteriorating between Mozart, who was not yet 18, and his employer the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg who wanted to restrict his freedom of composition and his travels. An inspection of the dating residues with a x8 magnifying glass, published in 2015 by The Musical Times, is consistent with Köchel's dating.
This volume was sold for £ 2.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 22, 1987. The symphonies are on loan to the Morgan Library in New York and are now individually bound.
1894 Passions for Beyond the Grave
2016 SOLD for £ 4.55M including premium
A child prodigy, Gustav Mahler becomes a conductor and uses his spare time for musical composition. His other passion is to Catholic mysticism despite he is a Jew. He is inspired by the symphonies of Liszt and Bruckner and by the grandiose construction of Wagner's operas.
Attending von Bülow's funeral in 1894, Mahler is dazzled by the ode to the Resurrection by Klopstock. He immediately begins his second symphony in five movements starting with the symphonic poem Todtenfeier which he had composed in 1888. The next phases form a dramatic crescendo leading to the exalted fortissimo of the fifth movement.
Mahler's second symphony is monumental by its duration close to an hour and a half and by its orchestra requiring 90 musicians accompanied by choirs and by soloists in soprano and alto. The conductor Semyon Bychkov comments : “At the end of it you feel that you have arrived in heaven having gone through hell”.
In 1965 the businessman Gilbert Kaplan is in his turn overwhelmed by the second symphony. He has conductor skills which he thereafter devotes exclusively to this piece.
Written from April to December 1894, the autograph manuscript of the second symphony in 232 pages 35 x 27 cm remains complete with its reworks, its withdrawals and its additions. It has never been bound.
Coming from the deceased estate of Kaplan who had acquired it in private sale in 1984, the manuscript is estimated £ 3.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on November 29, lot 36. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Attending von Bülow's funeral in 1894, Mahler is dazzled by the ode to the Resurrection by Klopstock. He immediately begins his second symphony in five movements starting with the symphonic poem Todtenfeier which he had composed in 1888. The next phases form a dramatic crescendo leading to the exalted fortissimo of the fifth movement.
Mahler's second symphony is monumental by its duration close to an hour and a half and by its orchestra requiring 90 musicians accompanied by choirs and by soloists in soprano and alto. The conductor Semyon Bychkov comments : “At the end of it you feel that you have arrived in heaven having gone through hell”.
In 1965 the businessman Gilbert Kaplan is in his turn overwhelmed by the second symphony. He has conductor skills which he thereafter devotes exclusively to this piece.
Written from April to December 1894, the autograph manuscript of the second symphony in 232 pages 35 x 27 cm remains complete with its reworks, its withdrawals and its additions. It has never been bound.
Coming from the deceased estate of Kaplan who had acquired it in private sale in 1984, the manuscript is estimated £ 3.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on November 29, lot 36. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Gustav Mahlers in Hamburg vollendete Auferstehungssinfonie am 2. Nov 16.30-19.00 in Hamburgs Lichtwarksaal zu sehen: https://t.co/KiE3lRtuhO pic.twitter.com/PZdU6xjkdq
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 1, 2016
1909 A Self Portrait in the Jugendstil
2016 SOLD for £ 7.2M including premium
The Viennese Jugendstil deserves its name: Gustav Klimt endeavors to reveal and protect young skilled artists. Egon Schiele is passionate about drawing since childhood and begins to paint on canvas. During the summer of 1909 he exhibits four paintings at the International Kunstschau promoting Klimt's Secessionist movement. Aged 19, he is still a student.
The advances by Klimt in the artistic language are revolutionary and effective. Schiele is inspired by them but early seeks to express his own personality. A self-portrait 74 x 30 cm painted by Egon in late 1909 was sold for £ 4.5 million including premium by Christie's in London on 6 February 2007. It is now estimated £ 6M for sale in the same auction room on February 2, lot 31.
Working a portrait in a narrow vertical format is one of Klimt's innovations. Egon reuses this idea while limiting the figuration to the head in the top right and the hands at the lower end of the image, over a dark background.
The young artist is ambitious. The insertion of the head into a gold frame on two and a half sides is an adaptation from the gilded left and right edges of Klimt's Judith. The left edge of Egon's image is decorated with small variously colored rectangles that mark his temporary allegiance to the Wiener Werkstätte.
Schiele's personality is complex. He wants to be recognized and his lively gazes undertakes communication, but his face is heavily rouged. The fingers which are the tool of his growing fame are wide open in a hermetic symbolism that can be a proposal, an explanation or a mime.
The advances by Klimt in the artistic language are revolutionary and effective. Schiele is inspired by them but early seeks to express his own personality. A self-portrait 74 x 30 cm painted by Egon in late 1909 was sold for £ 4.5 million including premium by Christie's in London on 6 February 2007. It is now estimated £ 6M for sale in the same auction room on February 2, lot 31.
Working a portrait in a narrow vertical format is one of Klimt's innovations. Egon reuses this idea while limiting the figuration to the head in the top right and the hands at the lower end of the image, over a dark background.
The young artist is ambitious. The insertion of the head into a gold frame on two and a half sides is an adaptation from the gilded left and right edges of Klimt's Judith. The left edge of Egon's image is decorated with small variously colored rectangles that mark his temporary allegiance to the Wiener Werkstätte.
Schiele's personality is complex. He wants to be recognized and his lively gazes undertakes communication, but his face is heavily rouged. The fingers which are the tool of his growing fame are wide open in a hermetic symbolism that can be a proposal, an explanation or a mime.
#Selbstbildnis von #EgonSchiele und weitere namhafte #Künstler am 2. Feb. bei @ChristiesInc. https://t.co/rvA9iHZonE pic.twitter.com/4523IJGcOC
— Barnebys.de (@Barnebysde) January 19, 2016
1910 Merciless Portraits by Kokoschka
2018 SOLD for $ 20.4M including premium
From the beginning of his career as a playwright and artist in 1909, Oskar Kokoschka positions himself as a nonconformist and as a troublemaker. He is 23 years old and is called the chief of the savages by the Viennese press. His influence is decisive on Egon Schiele, four years younger than him.
The modernist architect Adolf Loos is another fighter of preconceived ideas. His girlfriend is tuberculous. He placed her in Switzerland in one of the most luxurious sanatoriums, used by the European aristocracy. In January 1910 Loos makes a long stay with his girlfriend. He is accompanied by Kokoschka.
This microcosm of characters weakened by the disease and their visitors who are hardly more beautiful inspires Kokoschka who paints a series of spontaneous portraits, without preparatory drawings. The models are not clients : the young artist is uncompromising and pitiless.
Psychology dominates over the technique, and it does not matter if impastos interplay with zones of very thin layers on the canvas. The result is the angular line, giving the impression of great nervousness, which will characterize the art of Kokoschka in all his themes throughout his career. In 1937 he was classified as a degenerate artist.
On November 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells the portrait of Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, oil on canvas 80 x 63 cm, lot 21estimated $ 15M. The quiet and sad aristocrat, aged 35, had come to the sanatorium for helping his wife Victoire whose portrait Kokoschka also made. The painting for sale has just been returned to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer to whom it had been confiscated in 1934.
The modernist architect Adolf Loos is another fighter of preconceived ideas. His girlfriend is tuberculous. He placed her in Switzerland in one of the most luxurious sanatoriums, used by the European aristocracy. In January 1910 Loos makes a long stay with his girlfriend. He is accompanied by Kokoschka.
This microcosm of characters weakened by the disease and their visitors who are hardly more beautiful inspires Kokoschka who paints a series of spontaneous portraits, without preparatory drawings. The models are not clients : the young artist is uncompromising and pitiless.
Psychology dominates over the technique, and it does not matter if impastos interplay with zones of very thin layers on the canvas. The result is the angular line, giving the impression of great nervousness, which will characterize the art of Kokoschka in all his themes throughout his career. In 1937 he was classified as a degenerate artist.
On November 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells the portrait of Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac, oil on canvas 80 x 63 cm, lot 21estimated $ 15M. The quiet and sad aristocrat, aged 35, had come to the sanatorium for helping his wife Victoire whose portrait Kokoschka also made. The painting for sale has just been returned to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer to whom it had been confiscated in 1934.
1911 A Funeral Procession by Schiele
2010 SOLD 4.4 M€ including premium
Had he not died at age 28 (of Spanish flu), Schiele could have been one of the most outstanding artists of the twentieth century.
His personal story ended badly, but it also had a bad start. He was fifteen years old when his father died of syphilis. Death and sex will be the leitmotif of this gifted young man.
In Vienna, his skill was acknowledged by Klimt, and he became aware of the trends in modern art and more specifically of Munch.
He is 21 years old in 1911 when he paints this oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, entitled Prozession, for sale on November 9 by Im Kinsky in Vienna and to be considered as a masterpiece of the macabre art. A procession moves toward the observer, with no human form but three death masks and two bare feet.
With his dark thoughts, Schiele follows Ensor without the sharpness of his humor. The figures of his dense procession are psychologically isolated, same as those of Kirchner in the crowded streets of Berlin. Is it a coincidence? In the same year, 1911, the master of Expressionism discovers Berlin.
This unusual and powerful work is estimated € 3.5M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, € 4.4 million including premium, is excellent, especially when considering that Schiele was very young when he painted this Prozession.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by ImKinsky :
His personal story ended badly, but it also had a bad start. He was fifteen years old when his father died of syphilis. Death and sex will be the leitmotif of this gifted young man.
In Vienna, his skill was acknowledged by Klimt, and he became aware of the trends in modern art and more specifically of Munch.
He is 21 years old in 1911 when he paints this oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, entitled Prozession, for sale on November 9 by Im Kinsky in Vienna and to be considered as a masterpiece of the macabre art. A procession moves toward the observer, with no human form but three death masks and two bare feet.
With his dark thoughts, Schiele follows Ensor without the sharpness of his humor. The figures of his dense procession are psychologically isolated, same as those of Kirchner in the crowded streets of Berlin. Is it a coincidence? In the same year, 1911, the master of Expressionism discovers Berlin.
This unusual and powerful work is estimated € 3.5M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, € 4.4 million including premium, is excellent, especially when considering that Schiele was very young when he painted this Prozession.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by ImKinsky :
1912 The Eyes of the Boat
2019 SOLD for £ 10.7M including premium
Egon and Wally live together since the end of 1911. He is 21 years old and she is 17. She is the main model of his erotic art. The neighbors seek to protect their teenage daughters against the sulphurous influence of the young couple. Egon and Wally leave Vienna and Krumau successively and settle in the village of Neulengbach.
After another complaint Egon Schiele spends 24 days in the prison of Neulengbach, in April 1912. His conviction was limited to an offense against morality for exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children.
Once out of this ordeal, Schiele feels the need to change air. In May he spends a few days in Trieste, a place he loved, in the pleasant atmosphere of the fishing port.
On February 26 in London, Sotheby's sells Triestiner Fischerboot, lot 9 estimated £ 6M, oil on canvas certainly painted in his studio in Vienna around the end of 1912.
On a square format 70 x 70 cm, the composition is symmetrical and flat. The boat is seen from the front, in a rather naive drawing and without perspective. The colors are rich and saturated, in the morbid style that Schiele had already practiced.
The perspective is nevertheless present by the water that deviates in front of the boat as if she was rushing onto the observer. At the foreground of the boat two anchor points increase the threat of this subject that could have been peaceful. Black in a bright red orbit, they are on both sides of the main axis like the intimidating taotie of the Chinese liturgical bronzes.
The logical continuation of Triestiner Fischerboot is the series of haunted cityscapes of Krumau in which no human presence is needed to express the artist's feelings. Until 1912 Schiele could have become a cursed artist. This is not the case : fame comes to him as early as 1913 with his first solo exhibition.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
After another complaint Egon Schiele spends 24 days in the prison of Neulengbach, in April 1912. His conviction was limited to an offense against morality for exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children.
Once out of this ordeal, Schiele feels the need to change air. In May he spends a few days in Trieste, a place he loved, in the pleasant atmosphere of the fishing port.
On February 26 in London, Sotheby's sells Triestiner Fischerboot, lot 9 estimated £ 6M, oil on canvas certainly painted in his studio in Vienna around the end of 1912.
On a square format 70 x 70 cm, the composition is symmetrical and flat. The boat is seen from the front, in a rather naive drawing and without perspective. The colors are rich and saturated, in the morbid style that Schiele had already practiced.
The perspective is nevertheless present by the water that deviates in front of the boat as if she was rushing onto the observer. At the foreground of the boat two anchor points increase the threat of this subject that could have been peaceful. Black in a bright red orbit, they are on both sides of the main axis like the intimidating taotie of the Chinese liturgical bronzes.
The logical continuation of Triestiner Fischerboot is the series of haunted cityscapes of Krumau in which no human presence is needed to express the artist's feelings. Until 1912 Schiele could have become a cursed artist. This is not the case : fame comes to him as early as 1913 with his first solo exhibition.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
#AuctionUpdate We’re sailing away with Egon Schiele’s uniquely modernist depiction of a fishing boat in Trieste. Offered at auction for the first time, this square-format painting brings £10.7 million #SothebysImpMod pic.twitter.com/F0CVexb5uK
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) February 26, 2019
1914 Schiele's Dead City
2011 SOLD 24.7 M£ including premium
Egon Schiele felt misunderstood and was not living with his own time. These difficulties have made him a major artist of the 1910s, just when everything moved in Vienna, Paris, Munich, Berlin, to invent new styles of artistic expression.
Attracted by the morbid and the erotic, he executed in 1912 some extraordinary portraits of himself and his girlfriend Wally. The young artist was soon after returning to his dark thoughts.
He took as a major theme the small town of Krumau, in southern Bohemia, where his mother was born. Sensitive to the paradox of living today in a medieval city, he gave it the name of Tote Stadt (The Dead City).
The panorama is seen from above, an angle of view that Schiele liked even in his portraits. The houses are in close ranks, schematized like on an engraving of the Renaissance. Much later, this vestige of ancient times will be listed in the World Heritage list of the UNESCO. The river flows in the foreground or away: the Moldau.
Sometimes, bright splashes of color give a hope of happiness to the dreary cityscape. On the banks of the river, the laundry is exposed on this oil on canvas made in 1914, 100 x 120 cm, estimated £ 22M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 22. The picture, along with the story of the circumstances of its arrival on the market, is shared on an article by Bloomberg.
This series of paintings is very rare at auction, and is among the most important roots of modern art. Two other specimens were sold over the past decade: $ 22.5 million including premium at Christie's on November 8, 2006 (1915, 110 x 140 cm), £ 12.7 million including premium by Sotheby's on June 23, 2004 (1916, 110 x 140 cm).
POST SALE COMMENT
The price, £ 24.7M including premium, confirms the lower estimate.
Attracted by the morbid and the erotic, he executed in 1912 some extraordinary portraits of himself and his girlfriend Wally. The young artist was soon after returning to his dark thoughts.
He took as a major theme the small town of Krumau, in southern Bohemia, where his mother was born. Sensitive to the paradox of living today in a medieval city, he gave it the name of Tote Stadt (The Dead City).
The panorama is seen from above, an angle of view that Schiele liked even in his portraits. The houses are in close ranks, schematized like on an engraving of the Renaissance. Much later, this vestige of ancient times will be listed in the World Heritage list of the UNESCO. The river flows in the foreground or away: the Moldau.
Sometimes, bright splashes of color give a hope of happiness to the dreary cityscape. On the banks of the river, the laundry is exposed on this oil on canvas made in 1914, 100 x 120 cm, estimated £ 22M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 22. The picture, along with the story of the circumstances of its arrival on the market, is shared on an article by Bloomberg.
This series of paintings is very rare at auction, and is among the most important roots of modern art. Two other specimens were sold over the past decade: $ 22.5 million including premium at Christie's on November 8, 2006 (1915, 110 x 140 cm), £ 12.7 million including premium by Sotheby's on June 23, 2004 (1916, 110 x 140 cm).
POST SALE COMMENT
The price, £ 24.7M including premium, confirms the lower estimate.
1914 Self Portrait drawing by Schiele
2013 SOLD for £ 5.1M including premium by Sotheby's
See below (1915) for another self portrait drawing from the same sale.
1915 The House of Fall
2006 SOLD for $ 22.5M including premium by Christie's
2017 UNSOLD
PRE 2017 SALE DISCUSSION
Egon Schiele wants to be the pioneer of a new art expressing the deepest of human nature that he observes without complacency up to pornography and self-derision. He is persecuted by the bourgeois for his supposed habits and for the very real public display of sexually explicit artworks.
The nervous lines in the bodies of his young mistresses announce their future decadence but they remain alive. This anguished artist must find a means for expressing the mortality. From 1912 he uses as another theme the small town of Krumau where his mother was born. Krumau is a medieval town incompatible with the modernist and socially advanced trends of the artist. It is his Tote Stadt, even more morbid in his memories and imagination. Autumn adds its decrepitude.
Nothing happens as this idealist would have liked. The outbreak of war is perceived as a break with the past without an opening to the future. He goes to marry Edith but Wally violently refuses the household of three on which he was daydreaming. He is frustrated in his erotic desires and in the recognition of his self-proclaimed genius.
Egon is not apt for an active military service but is mobilized in an office position in June 1915 three days after marrying Edith. On June 27 in London, Christie's sells Einzelne Häuser, lot 16 estimated £ 20M. This oil on canvas 110 x 140 cm painted in the darkest moments of this summer 1915 had been sold for $ 22.5M including premium by Christie's on November 8, 2006, lot 60.
In front of an insignificant landscape structured in horizontal lines, the big house is the main character. Its gloomy texture announces an upcoming decay. It rises like a towering and outdated inquisitor in the middle of the scenery. It has already lost any trace of life.
Another masterpiece painted in the previous year on the same theme, Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, was not so completely pessimistic with its drying laundry and a few lit windows. This oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm was sold for £ 24,7M including premium by Sotheby's on June 22, 2011.
Egon Schiele wants to be the pioneer of a new art expressing the deepest of human nature that he observes without complacency up to pornography and self-derision. He is persecuted by the bourgeois for his supposed habits and for the very real public display of sexually explicit artworks.
The nervous lines in the bodies of his young mistresses announce their future decadence but they remain alive. This anguished artist must find a means for expressing the mortality. From 1912 he uses as another theme the small town of Krumau where his mother was born. Krumau is a medieval town incompatible with the modernist and socially advanced trends of the artist. It is his Tote Stadt, even more morbid in his memories and imagination. Autumn adds its decrepitude.
Nothing happens as this idealist would have liked. The outbreak of war is perceived as a break with the past without an opening to the future. He goes to marry Edith but Wally violently refuses the household of three on which he was daydreaming. He is frustrated in his erotic desires and in the recognition of his self-proclaimed genius.
Egon is not apt for an active military service but is mobilized in an office position in June 1915 three days after marrying Edith. On June 27 in London, Christie's sells Einzelne Häuser, lot 16 estimated £ 20M. This oil on canvas 110 x 140 cm painted in the darkest moments of this summer 1915 had been sold for $ 22.5M including premium by Christie's on November 8, 2006, lot 60.
In front of an insignificant landscape structured in horizontal lines, the big house is the main character. Its gloomy texture announces an upcoming decay. It rises like a towering and outdated inquisitor in the middle of the scenery. It has already lost any trace of life.
Another masterpiece painted in the previous year on the same theme, Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, was not so completely pessimistic with its drying laundry and a few lit windows. This oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm was sold for £ 24,7M including premium by Sotheby's on June 22, 2011.
Des œuvres majeures de #Beckmann, #Picasso, #Schiele et #VanGogh sont à retrouver à Londres lors de la semaine 20TH CENTURY du 26 au 28 juin pic.twitter.com/j2n8u9IWQq
— Christie's Paris (@christiesparis) June 13, 2017
1915 The Tragic Embrace of Egon and Wally
2013 SOLD 7.9 M£ including premium
The world seen by Egon Schiele is unbearable, but the young man is trying to communicate. People are ugly. He shows his own ugliness in his many self-portraits. Life is probably meaningless: the art of Schiele has no limits, nor in provocation, or in derision, or in obscenity.
I do not know if another artist went as far as Schiele to show himself so unfriendly. He does not smile. The twisting of his body creates discomfort. His eyes, straight or angled, are too incisive for his communication to enable a response.
His muse Wally is also shown as an ageless figure. However, when they met in 1911, she was only 17 years old.
Schiele was also complicated and tormented within his private life. In 1915, he announces to Wally that he wants to marry, but especially not with her. Furious, she leaves. He then executes one of his most dramatic paintings, Death and the Maiden. The bending Death presses the kneeling girl. The stature of Egon and the face of Wally are recognizable in these two characters.
The drawing in gouache, watercolor and pencil for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 5 shows a similar scene. Wally, at mid-body, is by evidence standing on her knees, embracing the belt of her standing lover. This work is clearly identified as a self-portrait. Egon looks at Wally. The eyes of the young woman are distraught.
This drawing is estimated £ 6.5 M. It is illustrated in the article shared by Bloomberg.
POST SALE COMMENT
Two of the drawings presented in this sale are masterpieces by Schiele in his best specialty, the self-portrait.
The drawing of 1914, where he is alone, was sold £ 5.1 million including premium.
The drawing with Wally, described above, was sold £ 7.9 million including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's, highlighting the three Schiele drawings available in this sale :
I do not know if another artist went as far as Schiele to show himself so unfriendly. He does not smile. The twisting of his body creates discomfort. His eyes, straight or angled, are too incisive for his communication to enable a response.
His muse Wally is also shown as an ageless figure. However, when they met in 1911, she was only 17 years old.
Schiele was also complicated and tormented within his private life. In 1915, he announces to Wally that he wants to marry, but especially not with her. Furious, she leaves. He then executes one of his most dramatic paintings, Death and the Maiden. The bending Death presses the kneeling girl. The stature of Egon and the face of Wally are recognizable in these two characters.
The drawing in gouache, watercolor and pencil for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 5 shows a similar scene. Wally, at mid-body, is by evidence standing on her knees, embracing the belt of her standing lover. This work is clearly identified as a self-portrait. Egon looks at Wally. The eyes of the young woman are distraught.
This drawing is estimated £ 6.5 M. It is illustrated in the article shared by Bloomberg.
POST SALE COMMENT
Two of the drawings presented in this sale are masterpieces by Schiele in his best specialty, the self-portrait.
The drawing of 1914, where he is alone, was sold £ 5.1 million including premium.
The drawing with Wally, described above, was sold £ 7.9 million including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's, highlighting the three Schiele drawings available in this sale :
1917 The Erotic Drawings of Egon Schiele
2008 SOLD 2.2 M£ including premium
For fifteen years, the erotic works of Egon Schiele sell very well.
On February 4, in London, Christie's sold an important group of eight watercolors on paper, from the estate of a former associate of Ronald Lauder. For me, this sale was a test. I wrote in my blog:
"One may wonder why Lauder did not buy in private sale. If the sale is not a success, the price of the Viennese school will collapse."
In the catalogue, the top lot of the group was a dramatic naked woman from back, estimated £ 2 million, which was sold £ 2.5 million charge included. Five other works exceeded 500 K £. Buyers preferred at £ 2.9 million including fees a more original drawing, showing from back a nude mother with child behind her, which had been estimated £ 1.5 million. If I was right considering the sale as a test, we can fortunately conclude that the test was very successful!
Important Schiele drawings continued then to come on the market. By limiting it to Christie's, we note in the sale of May 6 in New York a simple pencil drawing depicting a nude contortionist female, pushed to $ 1.8 million including fees, on a low estimate of 600 K $.
In this trend, success is therefore assured for the four watercolors that Christie's sell in London on June 24.
The most erotic, a typical woman in shirt lying on her back with open legs, 30x46 cm, lot 61, is estimated £ 2 million.
A woman sitting with arms folded in a position expressing anguish, 56x37 cm, lot 60, expects £ 1.7 million.
The other two are less important, perhaps because less finished: Lot 62 is estimated 600 K£ and Lot 59: 400 K£.
POST SALE COMMENT
The most successful drawings of Schiele are now unsurprisingly valued around £ 2 million.
More exactly, Lot 60 was sold at £ 2.2 million and lot 61 at £ 1.9 million, including fees.
The signature is not enough, fortunately, to push up prices. The lot 59 was sold 480 K £ including fees, and lot 62 was not sold
On February 4, in London, Christie's sold an important group of eight watercolors on paper, from the estate of a former associate of Ronald Lauder. For me, this sale was a test. I wrote in my blog:
"One may wonder why Lauder did not buy in private sale. If the sale is not a success, the price of the Viennese school will collapse."
In the catalogue, the top lot of the group was a dramatic naked woman from back, estimated £ 2 million, which was sold £ 2.5 million charge included. Five other works exceeded 500 K £. Buyers preferred at £ 2.9 million including fees a more original drawing, showing from back a nude mother with child behind her, which had been estimated £ 1.5 million. If I was right considering the sale as a test, we can fortunately conclude that the test was very successful!
Important Schiele drawings continued then to come on the market. By limiting it to Christie's, we note in the sale of May 6 in New York a simple pencil drawing depicting a nude contortionist female, pushed to $ 1.8 million including fees, on a low estimate of 600 K $.
In this trend, success is therefore assured for the four watercolors that Christie's sell in London on June 24.
The most erotic, a typical woman in shirt lying on her back with open legs, 30x46 cm, lot 61, is estimated £ 2 million.
A woman sitting with arms folded in a position expressing anguish, 56x37 cm, lot 60, expects £ 1.7 million.
The other two are less important, perhaps because less finished: Lot 62 is estimated 600 K£ and Lot 59: 400 K£.
POST SALE COMMENT
The most successful drawings of Schiele are now unsurprisingly valued around £ 2 million.
More exactly, Lot 60 was sold at £ 2.2 million and lot 61 at £ 1.9 million, including fees.
The signature is not enough, fortunately, to push up prices. The lot 59 was sold 480 K £ including fees, and lot 62 was not sold
