Bird
including fantastic birds (phoenix)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Animals China Ming Qianlong Modern China Qi Baishi Chinese porcelain Ming porcelain Qing porcelain Art on paper Germany II Klimt Miro Bacon Bacon < 63 Later Bacons Brancusi The Man The Woman Orientalism Flowers
Chronology : 15th century 1480-1499 18th century 1750-1759 1907 1910-1919 1918 1922 1938 1940-1949 1940 1946 1958 1965 1970-1979 1976
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Animals China Ming Qianlong Modern China Qi Baishi Chinese porcelain Ming porcelain Qing porcelain Art on paper Germany II Klimt Miro Bacon Bacon < 63 Later Bacons Brancusi The Man The Woman Orientalism Flowers
Chronology : 15th century 1480-1499 18th century 1750-1759 1907 1910-1919 1918 1922 1938 1940-1949 1940 1946 1958 1965 1970-1979 1976
Chenghua Chicken Cup
2014 SOLD for HK$ 280M by Sotheby's
In 1464 CE Chenghua became the eighth Ming Emperor. Politically dominated by his eunuchs and socially by his concubines, he did not leave an indelible mark in history during this reign that lasted 24 years. Inactive after the reign of Xuande, the Jingdezhen kilns were reactivated three decades later by Chenghua.
The blue and white in two hues of the beginning looks similar as Yuan and early Ming styles. The most recent technical innovation is then the doucai, by which other colors could be added through a second firing.
The best period of Chenghua porcelains is the second decade of his reign with the unique technique of the so-called palace bowls. Improvements are made to the choice of materials, enabling a higher temperature.
These pieces are innovative by the extreme care in realizing the porcelain with a dense paste, a transparent and robust glaze, providing a tactile quality that will never be available again.
The doucai color also gets some spectacular progress. Mixing enameled colors over the glaze allows a wide range of shades. The gently curved shapes of their walls are also new, in several variants.
Cups are used for wine and bowls for food. These pieces bearing the imperial mark are mainly made for the use of the principal concubine Wan Guifei whose demands were evidently extreme. They are highly rare and not even found as failed or waste pieces, demonstrating the rigorous surveillance made on site in Jingdezhen by imperial eunuchs.
This limited production was so expensive that the emperor's advisers were able to stop it after about ten years, during the 20th year of the reign corresponding to 1485 CE, two years before the death of the emperor and his concubine.
The drawing is innovative with asymmetrical compositions often adorned with spirals. The chicken cups are prestigious. Bowls are decorated with delicacy and simplicity, with flowers or fruits of botanical accuracy.
The figures of Chenghua ceramics are simple and naive. However, his chicken wine cups had an almost mystical reputation. The rooster is the emperor, and the hen protecting her chicks is his favorite concubine. Wan Guifei herself intervened to improve the quality of imperial porcelains.
One of these wonders is in perfect condition, on a pristine white background, without any crack or scratch. This piece 8.2 cm in diameter is decorated underglaze in cobalt blue and multicolored on its surface.
It was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 29M on April 27, 1999, purchased at that sale by Eskenazi, and for HK $ 280M on April 8, 2014. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The blue and white in two hues of the beginning looks similar as Yuan and early Ming styles. The most recent technical innovation is then the doucai, by which other colors could be added through a second firing.
The best period of Chenghua porcelains is the second decade of his reign with the unique technique of the so-called palace bowls. Improvements are made to the choice of materials, enabling a higher temperature.
These pieces are innovative by the extreme care in realizing the porcelain with a dense paste, a transparent and robust glaze, providing a tactile quality that will never be available again.
The doucai color also gets some spectacular progress. Mixing enameled colors over the glaze allows a wide range of shades. The gently curved shapes of their walls are also new, in several variants.
Cups are used for wine and bowls for food. These pieces bearing the imperial mark are mainly made for the use of the principal concubine Wan Guifei whose demands were evidently extreme. They are highly rare and not even found as failed or waste pieces, demonstrating the rigorous surveillance made on site in Jingdezhen by imperial eunuchs.
This limited production was so expensive that the emperor's advisers were able to stop it after about ten years, during the 20th year of the reign corresponding to 1485 CE, two years before the death of the emperor and his concubine.
The drawing is innovative with asymmetrical compositions often adorned with spirals. The chicken cups are prestigious. Bowls are decorated with delicacy and simplicity, with flowers or fruits of botanical accuracy.
The figures of Chenghua ceramics are simple and naive. However, his chicken wine cups had an almost mystical reputation. The rooster is the emperor, and the hen protecting her chicks is his favorite concubine. Wan Guifei herself intervened to improve the quality of imperial porcelains.
One of these wonders is in perfect condition, on a pristine white background, without any crack or scratch. This piece 8.2 cm in diameter is decorated underglaze in cobalt blue and multicolored on its surface.
It was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 29M on April 27, 1999, purchased at that sale by Eskenazi, and for HK $ 280M on April 8, 2014. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1752 100 Birds
2021 SOLD for RMB 266M by Poly
The manufacturing process of the reticulated revolving vase was arguably the most difficult ever, with the elements being assembled after separate firing. The Qianlong emperor wisely stopped it after pairing the last additional pieces to the production from the first batches.
The technology of the double vase nevertheless remained appealing for offering the most favorable auspices. Such pieces may be identified as turning heart bottles.
One of them, 63 cm high, is among the most massive in that category. The outer belly features a flying phoenix in a scenery. The open work matches the details of the landscape in irregular shapes, which is an additional feat with a higher risk of deformation during the firing. The rotation of the inner cylinder reveals the flock of ten species of auspicious birds in their flight facing the phoenix as a symbol of the harmonious balance of yin and yang.
The Divine Mother Empress Dowager Chongqing was held in very high regard by her son the Qianlong emperor and her 60th birthday in 1752 CE was one of the most lavish events of his reign.
The Imperial archives record that, on the fifth month of Qianlong's 18th year, the emperor commissioned Jingdezhen to fire a turning heart bottle with fighting dragons which was delivered by Tang Ying in the 11th month of the next year after 18 months of labor.
The yangcai vase with the phoenix was not documented. It was certainly prepared in the same period for a filial presenting to the empress dowager who was known to enjoy the story of the '100 birds'. It was sold for £ 330K by Christie's on June 15, 1999, lot 99, and for RMB 266M by Poly on June 7, 2021, lot 5153.
The technology of the double vase nevertheless remained appealing for offering the most favorable auspices. Such pieces may be identified as turning heart bottles.
One of them, 63 cm high, is among the most massive in that category. The outer belly features a flying phoenix in a scenery. The open work matches the details of the landscape in irregular shapes, which is an additional feat with a higher risk of deformation during the firing. The rotation of the inner cylinder reveals the flock of ten species of auspicious birds in their flight facing the phoenix as a symbol of the harmonious balance of yin and yang.
The Divine Mother Empress Dowager Chongqing was held in very high regard by her son the Qianlong emperor and her 60th birthday in 1752 CE was one of the most lavish events of his reign.
The Imperial archives record that, on the fifth month of Qianlong's 18th year, the emperor commissioned Jingdezhen to fire a turning heart bottle with fighting dragons which was delivered by Tang Ying in the 11th month of the next year after 18 months of labor.
The yangcai vase with the phoenix was not documented. It was certainly prepared in the same period for a filial presenting to the empress dowager who was known to enjoy the story of the '100 birds'. It was sold for £ 330K by Christie's on June 15, 1999, lot 99, and for RMB 266M by Poly on June 7, 2021, lot 5153.
masterpiece
July 1890 Champ de Blé aux Corbeaux by van Gogh
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Grok thought :
Quote
Dominique Pucini @Dominiquepucini Jul 30, 2021
Vincent #VanGogh Le champ de blé aux corbeaux 1890 « Je suis totalement absorbé par cette étendue infinie de champs de blé, sur un fond de collines, grande comme la mer, aux couleurs délicates, jaunes, vertes, le violet pâle d’un terrain sarclé et labouré.. »
Grok thought :
Quote
Dominique Pucini @Dominiquepucini Jul 30, 2021
Vincent #VanGogh Le champ de blé aux corbeaux 1890 « Je suis totalement absorbé par cette étendue infinie de champs de blé, sur un fond de collines, grande comme la mer, aux couleurs délicates, jaunes, vertes, le violet pâle d’un terrain sarclé et labouré.. »
- The post showcases Vincent van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows" (1890), one of his last paintings from Auvers-sur-Oise, paired with a quote from his letters describing his captivation by the endless wheat fields' subtle yellows, greens, and violets against distant hills.
- Painted amid mental turmoil, the artwork's swirling clouds and fleeing crows evoke isolation and impending tragedy, yet the quote highlights Van Gogh's serene awe for nature, created mere days before his death on July 29, 1890.
- Shared by Dominique Pucini, an X user focused on art and empathy, this 2021 post fits her pattern of highlighting emotional depth in masterpieces, as seen in her ongoing Van Gogh series through 2025.
1907 Les Flamants by Rousseau
2023 SOLD for $ 43.5M by Christie's
Henri Rousseau retired in 1893 at age 49 as a tax collector on goods entering Paris. A keen amateur artist, he exhibited since 1886 at the Salon des Indépendants. He did not travel. His sceneries were coming from his imagination, using low cost illustrations and postcards enlarged with a pantograph. He also sketched animals and plants at the Jardin des Plantes.
Through his tropical landscapes inhabited by terrible beasts, he created an unprecedented theme and style. He could not have known the bestiary of Aloys Zötl which did not surface before 1956.
The Parisian art circles were increasingly appealed with that new art, not without mocking his self trained author. He was nicknamed Le Douanier by Jarry who was the immediate precursor of surrealism in literature.
Les Flamants, oil on canvas 114 x 162 cm, is a Jungle painting by Le Douanier Rousseau. It features an idyllic pond or river with a background of palm trees, in the usual naive drawing style of the artist. Four flamingos stand on the shore. Stylized oversized waterlilies on stems at various heights populate the pond while three dwarfed natives in loincloth wait for fish on a sandbank.
It was sold for $ 43.5M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 34A.
The image is shared by Wikimedia and dated 1907 by Wikipedia and Wikimedia. This work is consistently dated 1907 or ca 1907 in the Literature and Exhibition sections of Christie's catalogue. It is nevertheless dated 1910 by the auction house which does not provide a rationale for this change in the online catalogue and the feature article.
Through his tropical landscapes inhabited by terrible beasts, he created an unprecedented theme and style. He could not have known the bestiary of Aloys Zötl which did not surface before 1956.
The Parisian art circles were increasingly appealed with that new art, not without mocking his self trained author. He was nicknamed Le Douanier by Jarry who was the immediate precursor of surrealism in literature.
Les Flamants, oil on canvas 114 x 162 cm, is a Jungle painting by Le Douanier Rousseau. It features an idyllic pond or river with a background of palm trees, in the usual naive drawing style of the artist. Four flamingos stand on the shore. Stylized oversized waterlilies on stems at various heights populate the pond while three dwarfed natives in loincloth wait for fish on a sandbank.
It was sold for $ 43.5M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 34A.
The image is shared by Wikimedia and dated 1907 by Wikipedia and Wikimedia. This work is consistently dated 1907 or ca 1907 in the Literature and Exhibition sections of Christie's catalogue. It is nevertheless dated 1910 by the auction house which does not provide a rationale for this change in the online catalogue and the feature article.
1918 Dame mit Fächer by Klimt
2023 SOLD for £ 85M by Sotheby's
The lifelong artistic quest of Gustav Klimt was the representation of the ideal woman, in conjunction with his project to revolutionize clothing and fabrics in partnership with his life companion the fashion designer Emilie Flöge.
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Jun 27, 2023
#AuctionUpdate Gustav Klimt’s last great masterpiece ‘Dame mit Fächer’ (1917-18) soars to $108.4m / £85.3m at #SothebysLondon, setting a new auction record for the most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe. #SothebysModern
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Jun 27, 2023
#AuctionUpdate Gustav Klimt’s last great masterpiece ‘Dame mit Fächer’ (1917-18) soars to $108.4m / £85.3m at #SothebysLondon, setting a new auction record for the most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe. #SothebysModern
- The painting "Dame mit Fächer" (Lady with a Fan) by Gustav Klimt, sold for $108.4 million at Sotheby’s London in 2023, reflects his late fascination with East Asian art, notably Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which influenced its vibrant patterns and composition, as evidenced by the Belvedere’s 2025 exhibition tracing these cultural exchanges.
- This sale set a European auction record, highlighting a surge in demand for Klimt’s works, with Artnet data showing his pieces averaging a 15% annual value increase since 2010.
- Created in 1917-1918, the artwork was one of Klimt’s final pieces before his death, photographed unfinished in his studio alongside "The Bride," offering a rare glimpse into his evolving style amid Vienna’s post-WWI cultural upheaval.
1922 Oiseau dans l'Espace by Brancusi
2005 SOLD for $ 27.5M by Christie's
Brancusi has no desire for a figurative representation of nature. The theme of the bird appeals him because the flight is an ascending link from earth to sky. The ultimate outcome is the Oiseau dans l'Espace, designed in the 1920s in the continuation of the Colonnes sans fin. The abstraction is total, except that if the bird was placed on its side it would look like a later childish fish by Calder.
A previously unknown example came out of its crate, where it had been installed by its owner Léonie Ricou preparing a move to Brussels. A protector of artists and poets, Mme Ricou had been the designated model of the abstract wooden figure titled Portrait de Madame L.R. sculpted by Brancusi between 1914 and 1917.
This newly surfaced Oiseau in a gray-blue marble with white veins on a limestone socle and pedestal is one of the smallest, with 85 cm high for the marble and 122 cm overall. Its proportions are remarkably balanced, with a superb polished stone which has been perfectly preserved by its long-term storage. It is possibly the very first Oiseau dans l'Espace, even before the 137 cm Etude, already closer to the sky, dated 1922.
This seminal piece was sold for $ 27.5M by Christie's on May 4, 2005 from a lower estimate of $ 8M, lot 7.
Brancusi and his Birds were ahead of their time. An anecdote is famous in the history of art. In 1926 a bronze sent to the United States for an exhibition was intercepted by customs officials, refusing to qualify it as a work of art which would have exempted it from import tax. It was reclassified in the category of kitchen utensils while awaiting the final decision, which will fortunately be favorable to the artist and will set a precedent for the legal recognition of abstract sculpture.
A previously unknown example came out of its crate, where it had been installed by its owner Léonie Ricou preparing a move to Brussels. A protector of artists and poets, Mme Ricou had been the designated model of the abstract wooden figure titled Portrait de Madame L.R. sculpted by Brancusi between 1914 and 1917.
This newly surfaced Oiseau in a gray-blue marble with white veins on a limestone socle and pedestal is one of the smallest, with 85 cm high for the marble and 122 cm overall. Its proportions are remarkably balanced, with a superb polished stone which has been perfectly preserved by its long-term storage. It is possibly the very first Oiseau dans l'Espace, even before the 137 cm Etude, already closer to the sky, dated 1922.
This seminal piece was sold for $ 27.5M by Christie's on May 4, 2005 from a lower estimate of $ 8M, lot 7.
Brancusi and his Birds were ahead of their time. An anecdote is famous in the history of art. In 1926 a bronze sent to the United States for an exhibition was intercepted by customs officials, refusing to qualify it as a work of art which would have exempted it from import tax. It was reclassified in the category of kitchen utensils while awaiting the final decision, which will fortunately be favorable to the artist and will set a precedent for the legal recognition of abstract sculpture.
1938 Hölle der Vögel by Beckmann
2017 SOLD for £ 36M by Christie's
After the First World War, German artists like Max Beckmann, Max Ernst, George Grosz and Otto Dix brought social criticism to the level of a major art far beyond caricature. Of course the Nazi regime does not agree. Beckmann is one of the targets of Hitler's furious attacks on degenerate art.
Beckmann precipitately left Germany in 1937 and settled in Amsterdam. Like Miro at the same time in Spain, he could not manage to stay away from politics. He immediately conceived a great composition, first entitled Der Land des Wahnsinningen (the country of the insane) which would express his horror of the collectivisms.
Completed at the end of the summer of 1938, Hölle der Vögel (hell of birds) is the achievement of that project. This oil on canvas 120 x 160 cm was sold for £ 36M by Christie's on June 27, 2017, lot 11. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This scene mixes the medieval and the modern to better express the permanent threat of abject persecution. Tortures are inflicted by hooded birds. In a claustrophobic atmosphere with black lines and garish colors, the victim chained on an Inquisition bed is a light spot. A bird plows his back to the blood with a large knife.
This lugubrious ceremony is presided by a harpy standing out of her broken egg with a monstrous breast. The crowd of secondary characters is made up of screaming nudes who perform the Hitler Grüss, removing any possible doubt about the interpretation of this allegory in the modern world.
The narrative abundance in that work is inspired by medieval imagery. The choice of the bird as a symbol of blind fury reminds the man-swallowing bird in Bosch's Hell.
The political violence in Hölle der Vögel may be compared to Picasso's Guernica, also conceived in 1937. Beckmann's painting, cautiously preserved in a private apartment in Paris until the end of the Second World War, would have deserved a similar notoriety.
Beckmann precipitately left Germany in 1937 and settled in Amsterdam. Like Miro at the same time in Spain, he could not manage to stay away from politics. He immediately conceived a great composition, first entitled Der Land des Wahnsinningen (the country of the insane) which would express his horror of the collectivisms.
Completed at the end of the summer of 1938, Hölle der Vögel (hell of birds) is the achievement of that project. This oil on canvas 120 x 160 cm was sold for £ 36M by Christie's on June 27, 2017, lot 11. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This scene mixes the medieval and the modern to better express the permanent threat of abject persecution. Tortures are inflicted by hooded birds. In a claustrophobic atmosphere with black lines and garish colors, the victim chained on an Inquisition bed is a light spot. A bird plows his back to the blood with a large knife.
This lugubrious ceremony is presided by a harpy standing out of her broken egg with a monstrous breast. The crowd of secondary characters is made up of screaming nudes who perform the Hitler Grüss, removing any possible doubt about the interpretation of this allegory in the modern world.
The narrative abundance in that work is inspired by medieval imagery. The choice of the bird as a symbol of blind fury reminds the man-swallowing bird in Bosch's Hell.
The political violence in Hölle der Vögel may be compared to Picasso's Guernica, also conceived in 1937. Beckmann's painting, cautiously preserved in a private apartment in Paris until the end of the Second World War, would have deserved a similar notoriety.
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1940 Constellations by Miro
2017 SOLD for £ 24.5M by Sotheby's
Joan Miro did not want to engage in politics but the tragic events forced his hand. His participation in the pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the 1937 Paris Exhibition did not go unnoticed. He feared retaliation and moved to Varengeville-sur-Mer in 1939.
Varengeville is one of the prettiest villages on the Normandy coast. Braque has his workshop and spends summers there. Calder is a frequent visitor. In this small land's end Miro calms his anxieties by contemplating the immensity of the night sky.
The personalization of the groupings of stars is one of the oldest poetic themes of our civilizations. Miro is not an astrologer but he is a poet. With the exceptional freedom of his imagination he superimposes on the sky the images of his fantasy.
In January 1940 Miro begins a series of artworks on the theme of the Constellations. They will all be on paper in the same size, 38 x 46 cm. The background is prepared by splashes of gouache and oil paint, more or less dark. The crescent moon and a few stars are the spectacular elements in bright colors accompanied by floating symbolic or abstract forms. The constellation, woman or bird, is a figure in thin lines surrounded by scrolls, scarcely more visible than a watermark.
The artist conceived from the outset this series as a coherent whole. The use of a a small and light format was premonitory. When he fled France to return to Spain in May 1940 he could take in his luggage the entire set : ten finished works and the pieces of paper that he will be use for the thirteen subsequent works.
The series of Constellations was completed in September 1941. Miro kept the secret until an exhibition in New York in 1945. Pollock was convinced by a possible non-figurative artistic transposition of an observable reality. With the Constellations of Miro modern art has just crossed the Atlantic.
The eighth opus of Miro's Constellations is dated 13 April 1940. Its unusually simple title, Femme et Oiseaux, prefigures the favorite themes of the artist for the rest of his career. In this sky that calls for peace, Joan Miro is not calmed : the woman howls. It was sold for £ 24.5M by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017, lot 45. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Varengeville is one of the prettiest villages on the Normandy coast. Braque has his workshop and spends summers there. Calder is a frequent visitor. In this small land's end Miro calms his anxieties by contemplating the immensity of the night sky.
The personalization of the groupings of stars is one of the oldest poetic themes of our civilizations. Miro is not an astrologer but he is a poet. With the exceptional freedom of his imagination he superimposes on the sky the images of his fantasy.
In January 1940 Miro begins a series of artworks on the theme of the Constellations. They will all be on paper in the same size, 38 x 46 cm. The background is prepared by splashes of gouache and oil paint, more or less dark. The crescent moon and a few stars are the spectacular elements in bright colors accompanied by floating symbolic or abstract forms. The constellation, woman or bird, is a figure in thin lines surrounded by scrolls, scarcely more visible than a watermark.
The artist conceived from the outset this series as a coherent whole. The use of a a small and light format was premonitory. When he fled France to return to Spain in May 1940 he could take in his luggage the entire set : ten finished works and the pieces of paper that he will be use for the thirteen subsequent works.
The series of Constellations was completed in September 1941. Miro kept the secret until an exhibition in New York in 1945. Pollock was convinced by a possible non-figurative artistic transposition of an observable reality. With the Constellations of Miro modern art has just crossed the Atlantic.
The eighth opus of Miro's Constellations is dated 13 April 1940. Its unusually simple title, Femme et Oiseaux, prefigures the favorite themes of the artist for the rest of his career. In this sky that calls for peace, Joan Miro is not calmed : the woman howls. It was sold for £ 24.5M by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017, lot 45. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1946 Eagle by Qi Baishi
2011 SOLD for RMB 425M by China Guardian (unpaid)
A drawing by Qi Baishi had been auctioned for RMB 425M by China Guardian on May 22, 2011, lot 1192. It features an eagle standing in a pine tree.
The composition is bold : the bird is completely surrounded by branches, but its proud look makes it the focal point of this image of 266 x 100 cm, flanked by two stripes 66 cm wide. Each stripe includes a poem in four huge calligrams.
It is a political symbol. This eagle was made in 1946 to celebrate the birthday of Jiang Jieshi (pinyin for Chiang Kai-shek) after the defeat of Japan.
POST SALE COMMENT two years after the sale by Chinese Antiques : the winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity.
Grok thought from an ArtHitParade tweet :
The composition is bold : the bird is completely surrounded by branches, but its proud look makes it the focal point of this image of 266 x 100 cm, flanked by two stripes 66 cm wide. Each stripe includes a poem in four huge calligrams.
It is a political symbol. This eagle was made in 1946 to celebrate the birthday of Jiang Jieshi (pinyin for Chiang Kai-shek) after the defeat of Japan.
POST SALE COMMENT two years after the sale by Chinese Antiques : the winning bidder has refused to pay for the piece since doubts were raised about its authenticity.
Grok thought from an ArtHitParade tweet :
- This 2011 post announces the apparent record $65 million sale of Qi Baishi's 1946 ink painting "Eagle Standing on a Pine Tree" at China Guardian in Beijing, capturing the peak of China's art market boom when auction totals hit $4.3 billion.
- Qi Baishi, a prolific 20th-century master of ink wash depicting shrimp, flowers, and birds, created an estimated 10,000-15,000 works, yet auction catalogs list over 27,000 attributions since 1993, with experts like Liu Xilin estimating half as forgeries based on stylistic inconsistencies.
- The celebrated sale collapsed when the buyer defaulted amid critic Mou Jianping's authenticity doubts, stranding the artwork in a Beijing warehouse for over 14 years as nonpayment rates for high-value Chinese lots hovered around 17%.
BACON
1
1958 Pope with Owls
2021 SOLD for $ 33M by Phillips
Since 1952 Francis Bacon is madly in love with Peter Lacy. Europe is not favorable to homosexuality and Peter settles in Tangier. From 1956 Francis visits him frequently. He works a lot despite the sadistic violence of his lover. Disillusioned by these increasingly insupportable conditions and by Peter's lack of interest in his art, Francis breaks up in 1959 and destroys almost all his Tangier paintings.
Throughout this period, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father,
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite, some of them missing in the jaw. The cheeks are emaciated. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
Pope with owls, oil on canvas 145 x 110 cm painted ca 1958, was acquired by its first owner directly from the artist in Tangier in 1959.
The papal figure in a dark staging of deep purple and dark red is haunting. His laughter reveals his craziness and indirectly the dead end of Francis's relation with Peter. The arms of the chair are closing onto him, canceling any hope to escape.
A pair of night birds perched as finials over the seat are watching straight forward, questioning the viewer from their cold gaze.
Pope with Owls was sold for $ 33M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 16.
Throughout this period, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father,
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite, some of them missing in the jaw. The cheeks are emaciated. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
Pope with owls, oil on canvas 145 x 110 cm painted ca 1958, was acquired by its first owner directly from the artist in Tangier in 1959.
The papal figure in a dark staging of deep purple and dark red is haunting. His laughter reveals his craziness and indirectly the dead end of Francis's relation with Peter. The arms of the chair are closing onto him, canceling any hope to escape.
A pair of night birds perched as finials over the seat are watching straight forward, questioning the viewer from their cold gaze.
Pope with Owls was sold for $ 33M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 16.
2
1976 Triptych
2008 SOLD for $ 86M by Sotheby's
In 1976 Francis Bacon prepares an exhibition of new works at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris. The highlight is a triptych in oil and pastel on canvas, 198 x 148 cm for each element. It was sold for $ 86M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008, lot 33.
This triptych brings together a synthesis of Francis' career, as Picasso had done twenty years earlier with his series of Les Femmes d'Alger.
Five years after the suicide of George Dyer, Francis confirms that the major inspirations of his art and of his life are suffering, guilt and punishment. The main figure in the central panel is a headless Prometheus tortured by the eagle, in a composition similar to 'Painting 1946'. Other symbols on this panel include the Furies disguised as pelicans and a chalice dripping with blood.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the young artist was gradually destroying his own work. This phase of creative dissatisfaction ended after the revelation to him of the two most tragic characters in the Greek theater, Prometheus and Orestes by Aeschylus.
The very first work he considered completed, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, in 1944, a triptych of elements 94 x 74 cm, is an interpretation of the mourners inspired by the Furies of Orestes. 'Painting 1946', 198 x 132 cm, was commented by Bacon : he had started painting a figure of a monkey, the alter ego of mankind, when the punishing eagle arrived in his subconscious.
The triptychs of 198 x 148 cm panels are the format chosen by Bacon in his later career for works he could consider as his masterpieces.
Response by Grok 4 :
Francis Bacon's "Triptych, 1976" (also known as "Triptych 1976") was sold at Sotheby's New York contemporary art auction on May 14, 2008, for $86,281,000, setting a record at the time for the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction.
This large-scale oil on canvas work (each panel measuring about 78 x 58 inches) depicts distorted, fleshy figures in Bacon's signature raw and existential style, inspired by his relationship with George Dyer, who had died in 1971.
The buyer was reportedly Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire.This record held until 2013, when another Bacon triptych, "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" (1969), sold for $142.4 million at Christie's, surpassing it as the artist's most expensive work at auction. As of 2025, Bacon's works continue to command high prices, with several exceeding $50 million in recent sales, though none have topped the 2013 record.
This triptych brings together a synthesis of Francis' career, as Picasso had done twenty years earlier with his series of Les Femmes d'Alger.
Five years after the suicide of George Dyer, Francis confirms that the major inspirations of his art and of his life are suffering, guilt and punishment. The main figure in the central panel is a headless Prometheus tortured by the eagle, in a composition similar to 'Painting 1946'. Other symbols on this panel include the Furies disguised as pelicans and a chalice dripping with blood.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the young artist was gradually destroying his own work. This phase of creative dissatisfaction ended after the revelation to him of the two most tragic characters in the Greek theater, Prometheus and Orestes by Aeschylus.
The very first work he considered completed, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, in 1944, a triptych of elements 94 x 74 cm, is an interpretation of the mourners inspired by the Furies of Orestes. 'Painting 1946', 198 x 132 cm, was commented by Bacon : he had started painting a figure of a monkey, the alter ego of mankind, when the punishing eagle arrived in his subconscious.
The triptychs of 198 x 148 cm panels are the format chosen by Bacon in his later career for works he could consider as his masterpieces.
Response by Grok 4 :
Francis Bacon's "Triptych, 1976" (also known as "Triptych 1976") was sold at Sotheby's New York contemporary art auction on May 14, 2008, for $86,281,000, setting a record at the time for the most expensive work of contemporary art ever sold at auction.
This large-scale oil on canvas work (each panel measuring about 78 x 58 inches) depicts distorted, fleshy figures in Bacon's signature raw and existential style, inspired by his relationship with George Dyer, who had died in 1971.
The buyer was reportedly Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire.This record held until 2013, when another Bacon triptych, "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" (1969), sold for $142.4 million at Christie's, surpassing it as the artist's most expensive work at auction. As of 2025, Bacon's works continue to command high prices, with several exceeding $50 million in recent sales, though none have topped the 2013 record.
early 1960s Eagle, Rock and Mountain Flowers by Pan Tianshou
2015 SOLD for RMB 280M by China Guardian
Pan Tianshou spent his entire career teaching art. Specialist in ancient Chinese painting, he was director of the National Academy from 1945 to 1947 and then from 1957 until his public humiliation by the Red Guards in 1966.
Since the 1920s, he developed an innovative technique of painting with his fingers to create a wash, which he completes with a brush for a great boldness in the distribution of details. The artist enters his paper placed on the ground to produce works of very large format.
His drawings have an extremely expressive jerky line. For landscapes, he is the painter of summits, with pines shaken by the wind and eagles and crows proud of their domination.
Eagle, Rock and Mountain Flowers is a large size view 182 x 142 cm painted in the early 1960s by Pan Tianshou.
The bird is standing on the edge of a cliff which is half hidden behind a pattern of flowers. From its position, it gazes at the landscape outside the field of view. With its closed wings and its neck tucked off in the shoulders, it looks endangered. A spectacular contrast is applied between the heavy inking of the foliage and the light line drawing of the background.
This undated work undeniably belongs to Pan's period of top artistic maturity just before the brutal termination of his career in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution. It surfaced in 1979, eight years after his vile death in custody.
It was sold for RMB 280M by China Guardian on May 17, 2015, lot 707.
Since the 1920s, he developed an innovative technique of painting with his fingers to create a wash, which he completes with a brush for a great boldness in the distribution of details. The artist enters his paper placed on the ground to produce works of very large format.
His drawings have an extremely expressive jerky line. For landscapes, he is the painter of summits, with pines shaken by the wind and eagles and crows proud of their domination.
Eagle, Rock and Mountain Flowers is a large size view 182 x 142 cm painted in the early 1960s by Pan Tianshou.
The bird is standing on the edge of a cliff which is half hidden behind a pattern of flowers. From its position, it gazes at the landscape outside the field of view. With its closed wings and its neck tucked off in the shoulders, it looks endangered. A spectacular contrast is applied between the heavy inking of the foliage and the light line drawing of the background.
This undated work undeniably belongs to Pan's period of top artistic maturity just before the brutal termination of his career in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution. It surfaced in 1979, eight years after his vile death in custody.
It was sold for RMB 280M by China Guardian on May 17, 2015, lot 707.
