Plus BASQUIAT
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Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
1982 Warrior
2013 SOLD for $ 29M by Christie's
As soon as he was invited to work in Annina Nosei's basement in 1981, Jean-Michel Basquiat gathered the elements of his personal mythology. An acrylic, oilstick and spray enamel on canvas 173 x 262 cm is typical. The character is an African warrior in the rough who wields a huge sword and a handful of radiant arrows or lightnings. This artwork was sold for $ 35M by Christie's in 2014.
On November 12, 2013, Christie's sold as lot 15 a simplified version of this image for $ 29M. Just as deliciously terrifying, this 183 x 122 cm acrylic and oilstick on wood painted in 1982 for Annina Nosei brings a better readability of the character, almost life-size in a surrounding of more vivid colors.
The main biomorphic features are retained, such as the skull-shaped head and the opening of the torso to internal organs. He is a tribal leader or an African American champion, with boxer shorts and gigantic feet that provide stability and triumph. The three-pointed crown is larger and in a shining golden yellow. The blood-red eyes are replaced with a gold plating.
Unlike the example of the previous year, the character no longer needs tags to convey his message. The weapons are replaced by a gigantic golden femur brandished like a scepter by this king of high fantasy. He is both winner and victim, ridiculous and autobiographical, in line with Basquiat's scathing humor of the time.
On November 12, 2013, Christie's sold as lot 15 a simplified version of this image for $ 29M. Just as deliciously terrifying, this 183 x 122 cm acrylic and oilstick on wood painted in 1982 for Annina Nosei brings a better readability of the character, almost life-size in a surrounding of more vivid colors.
The main biomorphic features are retained, such as the skull-shaped head and the opening of the torso to internal organs. He is a tribal leader or an African American champion, with boxer shorts and gigantic feet that provide stability and triumph. The three-pointed crown is larger and in a shining golden yellow. The blood-red eyes are replaced with a gold plating.
Unlike the example of the previous year, the character no longer needs tags to convey his message. The weapons are replaced by a gigantic golden femur brandished like a scepter by this king of high fantasy. He is both winner and victim, ridiculous and autobiographical, in line with Basquiat's scathing humor of the time.
1982 Yellow Tar and Feathers
2013 SOLD for $ 26M by Sotheby's
After his artistic experience in Modena in the spring of 1981, Basquiat returned under New York influence. His temporary installation in Annina Nosei's basement begins in September.
The activism against the humiliating living conditions of African Americans is gradually becoming his major theme. Pollo Frito, inspired by slavery in the Southern States, is included in the exhibition at the Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982. It was sold for $ 25.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018.
Basquiat leaves immediately afterward for Los Angeles. He has lots of ideas, works fast, and is decidedly inspired by California. This opportunity allows him to experiment with the more complex techniques of mixed media.
The exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles with the support of Nosei in April-May 1982 already includes his first masterpieces of this new phase, including two works forming pendants on the theme of tar and feathers.
The two works have no title defined by the artist and are identified by their dominant color : Yellow Tar and Feathers, and Black Tar and Feathers. With a narrative intention that follows the Pollo Frito, the artist separates each work into two registers. He no longer uses canvas but wood on which he can at will paste photocopies of drawings and stick ugly masses of feathers in the paint.
The yellow version, 245 x 230 cm, was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013, lot 10. As in the Pollo Frito, it incorporates a lot of subtleties, some of which are only identifiable by insiders.
At the left of the upper register, a misshapen bag bears the inscription TAR just beside a lynching, the other type of abject abuse traditionally inflicted on Negroes. A little further on, one of the three characters has the head of Harry Geldzahler, the white guru of this modern New York art that Basquiat has just fled.
The activism against the humiliating living conditions of African Americans is gradually becoming his major theme. Pollo Frito, inspired by slavery in the Southern States, is included in the exhibition at the Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982. It was sold for $ 25.7M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018.
Basquiat leaves immediately afterward for Los Angeles. He has lots of ideas, works fast, and is decidedly inspired by California. This opportunity allows him to experiment with the more complex techniques of mixed media.
The exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles with the support of Nosei in April-May 1982 already includes his first masterpieces of this new phase, including two works forming pendants on the theme of tar and feathers.
The two works have no title defined by the artist and are identified by their dominant color : Yellow Tar and Feathers, and Black Tar and Feathers. With a narrative intention that follows the Pollo Frito, the artist separates each work into two registers. He no longer uses canvas but wood on which he can at will paste photocopies of drawings and stick ugly masses of feathers in the paint.
The yellow version, 245 x 230 cm, was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2013, lot 10. As in the Pollo Frito, it incorporates a lot of subtleties, some of which are only identifiable by insiders.
At the left of the upper register, a misshapen bag bears the inscription TAR just beside a lynching, the other type of abject abuse traditionally inflicted on Negroes. A little further on, one of the three characters has the head of Harry Geldzahler, the white guru of this modern New York art that Basquiat has just fled.
1982 Pollo Frito
2018 SOLD for $ 25.7M by Sotheby's
On November 14, 2018, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 25.7M a diptych of total size 153 x 306 cm painted in 1982 by Basquiat and exhibited at Annina Nosei Gallery in March-April 1982.
This painting in acrylic, oil stick, enamel and incisions is dominated by incendiary colors : yellow, orange, red, beside the head of an angry cook. The many tags are in the style of texts adored by the street kids, incomprehensible by the bourgeois (and not decoded in the catalog of the sale).
The words Pollo Frito written like on a sign are not tags but the offer by the cook. The inscriptions all around are menacing : danger, peligroso, broke glass. The lower left corner is darker, symbolizing a stove on which Asbestos is written three times. The three-pointed crown is a signature of the artist.
The cook of chickens is furious against these young taggers who do not attack only the bourgeois but his Pollo Frito was formerly the typical food of the slaves of the south. The dangers of asbestos are a modern threat that the bourgeois still pretend to ignore at that time.
This diptych thus appears as an immediate precursor of the five-panel 125 x 471 cm political fresco titled Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, painted in the following year, sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
This painting in acrylic, oil stick, enamel and incisions is dominated by incendiary colors : yellow, orange, red, beside the head of an angry cook. The many tags are in the style of texts adored by the street kids, incomprehensible by the bourgeois (and not decoded in the catalog of the sale).
The words Pollo Frito written like on a sign are not tags but the offer by the cook. The inscriptions all around are menacing : danger, peligroso, broke glass. The lower left corner is darker, symbolizing a stove on which Asbestos is written three times. The three-pointed crown is a signature of the artist.
The cook of chickens is furious against these young taggers who do not attack only the bourgeois but his Pollo Frito was formerly the typical food of the slaves of the south. The dangers of asbestos are a modern threat that the bourgeois still pretend to ignore at that time.
This diptych thus appears as an immediate precursor of the five-panel 125 x 471 cm political fresco titled Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, painted in the following year, sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
1982 Red Skull
2017 SOLD for £ 16.5M by Christie's
On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M an Untitled 183 x 173 cm painted by Basquiat in January 1982. A Red Skull 152 x 152 cm of the same year was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, lot 8. Beyond the fact that both are centered on a single skull, these artworks have significant differences.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
1982 Red Warrior
2021 SOLD for HK$ 163M by Sotheby's
The red figure of a warrior marks as early as 1982 the desire of the young Jean-Michel to add in his art some slavery symbols of another world and time.
Its featured character is not an African tribal chief, nor a boxing champion, nor a NYC cop. He is a threatening and towering Roman gladiator brandishing his huge sword. The muscular body is again transparent to internal organs but for marking the difference it is not black but crimson red. He does not have a crown but an antique helmet.
This Untitled acrylic and oilstick on linen 196 x 198 cm was sold for HK $ 163M by Sotheby's on October 9, 2021, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Its featured character is not an African tribal chief, nor a boxing champion, nor a NYC cop. He is a threatening and towering Roman gladiator brandishing his huge sword. The muscular body is again transparent to internal organs but for marking the difference it is not black but crimson red. He does not have a crown but an antique helmet.
This Untitled acrylic and oilstick on linen 196 x 198 cm was sold for HK $ 163M by Sotheby's on October 9, 2021, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1982 One Eyed Man
2017 SOLD for £ 12M by Sotheby's
In 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat glorified the African American sports champion with both arms raised in victory in life-size paintings. The artwork 183 x 122 cm sold for £ 12M by Sotheby's on March 8, 2017, lot 13, brings another reading.
The champion has become shabby. His arms with disjointed elbows are branches of a dead tree and his crown of thorns is soft like a Dali watch. The big crown rewarding the winner is intact in the bottom right but we cannot know who will catch it.
The young artist mastered the mix of techniques : acrylic, spray and oilstick. However he takes care to execute the focusing point of the picture, the face of the character, by an ersatz of art : a simple xerox on which only one eye is left as another obvious sign of the degeneration of his hero.
Basquiat is a keen activist about the superiority of the black race but this nightmare is not a depressive accident in his work, otherwise he would have modified or destroyed it. It seems that the artist has always understood that his fight has no chance of success. This painting is a self-mocking masterpiece far more expressive than his drift in the following years toward the howling of a desperate political message.
The champion has become shabby. His arms with disjointed elbows are branches of a dead tree and his crown of thorns is soft like a Dali watch. The big crown rewarding the winner is intact in the bottom right but we cannot know who will catch it.
The young artist mastered the mix of techniques : acrylic, spray and oilstick. However he takes care to execute the focusing point of the picture, the face of the character, by an ersatz of art : a simple xerox on which only one eye is left as another obvious sign of the degeneration of his hero.
Basquiat is a keen activist about the superiority of the black race but this nightmare is not a depressive accident in his work, otherwise he would have modified or destroyed it. It seems that the artist has always understood that his fight has no chance of success. This painting is a self-mocking masterpiece far more expressive than his drift in the following years toward the howling of a desperate political message.
1982 Blue Head
2020 SOLD for $ 15.2M by Sotheby's
In 1981 Jean-Michel Basquiat benefits from new working conditions which immediately leads him to fame. He has fun, and amuses us, with themes inspired by the street.
Jean-Michel is a great artist because he perfectly masters composition and color and because his knowledge of art history guides him in a fruitful direction : the important thing in a human figuration is the head, which reveals the psyche and brings the threats.
Jean-Michel is a virtuoso of oilstick. This technique is mixing the quality of oil painting with the spontaneous line of a pencil if you are happy with only pure colors. He used it in the compositions on large size canvas that launched his fame from 1981. The drawing on paper, often laid down on canvas, allows rapid sketches with which the artist tests his expressive effects.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M by Christie's on May 18, 2017. Painted in March, a panoramic composition 239 x 500 cm centered on the head of a black devil was sold for $ 57M by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
He is a tireless creator. Besides his paintings on canvas, he does a lot of paintings on paper, which are not strictly speaking sketches but rather a means of testing various effects. This corpus includes a series of 15 heads of mad men.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait. In 1982 alone, fifteen drawings of crazy heads are known.
One of them, 109 x 78 cm, was entirely made in oilstick with five sticks : black, white, red, blue and orange. The mad man is superb with terrible eyes, aggressive fangs and a short but shaggy hair. The blue face and the bright red thick beard reinforce the disturbing and indomitable features of the character. This drawing was sold for $ 12M on November 12, 2013 by Christie's and for £ 6.2M by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016, lot 15.
Another drawing 109 x 77 cm is less colored. This head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 27A.
An Untitled oilstick and ink on paper 76 x 56 cm executed in 1982 was sold for £ 3.9M by Sotheby's on June 26, 2018, lot 3. Re-considered as a skull-like self portrait, it was sold for £ 8M by Christie's on June 28, 2022, lot 37. The glowing colors include the turquoise skin and vivid red and yellow spots, contrasting over the deep black ink of the background. The hair is a narrow spiked crown.
A head made in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
The 76 x 56 cm head for sale by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020 is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the example above, 1982. Here the artist takes no racial position : the skin is bright blue. He used on paper the range of techniques of his paintings on canvas, oilstick, ink and acrylic.
This piece halfway between the drawing and the completed work was sold for $ 15.2M from a lower estimate of $ 9M, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Jean-Michel is a great artist because he perfectly masters composition and color and because his knowledge of art history guides him in a fruitful direction : the important thing in a human figuration is the head, which reveals the psyche and brings the threats.
Jean-Michel is a virtuoso of oilstick. This technique is mixing the quality of oil painting with the spontaneous line of a pencil if you are happy with only pure colors. He used it in the compositions on large size canvas that launched his fame from 1981. The drawing on paper, often laid down on canvas, allows rapid sketches with which the artist tests his expressive effects.
1982 is the year of the heads, with all their expressive excesses and up to their decomposition. Painted in January, a monumental black head floating in space, 183 x 173 cm, was sold for $ 110M by Christie's on May 18, 2017. Painted in March, a panoramic composition 239 x 500 cm centered on the head of a black devil was sold for $ 57M by Christie's on May 10, 2016.
He is a tireless creator. Besides his paintings on canvas, he does a lot of paintings on paper, which are not strictly speaking sketches but rather a means of testing various effects. This corpus includes a series of 15 heads of mad men.
The staggering figures made by Jean-Michel are never so far from a physical as well as psychological self-portrait. In 1982 alone, fifteen drawings of crazy heads are known.
One of them, 109 x 78 cm, was entirely made in oilstick with five sticks : black, white, red, blue and orange. The mad man is superb with terrible eyes, aggressive fangs and a short but shaggy hair. The blue face and the bright red thick beard reinforce the disturbing and indomitable features of the character. This drawing was sold for $ 12M on November 12, 2013 by Christie's and for £ 6.2M by Sotheby's on February 10, 2016, lot 15.
Another drawing 109 x 77 cm is less colored. This head crowned with the halo, also from 1982, was sold for $ 13.6M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 27A.
An Untitled oilstick and ink on paper 76 x 56 cm executed in 1982 was sold for £ 3.9M by Sotheby's on June 26, 2018, lot 3. Re-considered as a skull-like self portrait, it was sold for £ 8M by Christie's on June 28, 2022, lot 37. The glowing colors include the turquoise skin and vivid red and yellow spots, contrasting over the deep black ink of the background. The hair is a narrow spiked crown.
A head made in 1983 was sold for $ 7.4M by Christie's on May 13, 2014.
The 76 x 56 cm head for sale by Sotheby's on June 29, 2020 is not part of the mad men series but is from the same year as the example above, 1982. Here the artist takes no racial position : the skin is bright blue. He used on paper the range of techniques of his paintings on canvas, oilstick, ink and acrylic.
This piece halfway between the drawing and the completed work was sold for $ 15.2M from a lower estimate of $ 9M, lot 103. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1983 Brother's Sausage
2016 SOLD for $ 18.6M by Sotheby's
In 1981 Basquiat achieved fame in New York City. The former graffiti activist was producing large size paintings depicting African American heroes and symbols. In 1983, aged 23, he structures his message to make it more political in his desire to fight the all-white power and to denounce the consumerism. He met Warhol in the same year.
He now expresses his violence on canvas panels covered in part with paper collages and hinged together in a sort of comic strip. A great example is Brother's Sausage, composed of six parts for a total size of 122 x 476 cm.
Starting from the left is a big bad wolf disguised in Uncle Sam who claims the virtues of a brand of 'famous' sausages. The story ends on the right by the mockery of a coin, openly criticizing the so-called Liberty.
Between these two sides, three of the central panels are covered with xeroxes of typical Basquiat sketches mingled in a mess like a graffiti wall in a disadvantaged suburb. There is also a blue sky area looking like a void in a fence.
Brother's Sausage was sold for $ 18.6M by Sotheby's on November 17, 2016, lot 36.
He now expresses his violence on canvas panels covered in part with paper collages and hinged together in a sort of comic strip. A great example is Brother's Sausage, composed of six parts for a total size of 122 x 476 cm.
Starting from the left is a big bad wolf disguised in Uncle Sam who claims the virtues of a brand of 'famous' sausages. The story ends on the right by the mockery of a coin, openly criticizing the so-called Liberty.
Between these two sides, three of the central panels are covered with xeroxes of typical Basquiat sketches mingled in a mess like a graffiti wall in a disadvantaged suburb. There is also a blue sky area looking like a void in a fence.
Brother's Sausage was sold for $ 18.6M by Sotheby's on November 17, 2016, lot 36.
1986 Jim Crow
2017 SOLD for € 15M by Christie's
In 1981 and 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat is a virtuoso of colors used by him with strength and humor to glorify the black heroes. This brilliant pantheon is the vision of an artist, powerless to change anything in the race relations. From 1983 his art becomes a virulent claim against the consumer society that oppresses the African Americans.
Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta is a masterpiece of his new way. The obsessively repeated tags accompany the visual message : Mississippi, Mark Twain, Negroes. A banner locates this disguised form of slavery : The Deep South. This 1983 polyptych was sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
On October 20, 2017, Christie's sold for € 15M as lot 14 B an acrylic and pencil on wooden parquet 205 x 244 x 4 cm painted in 1986.
The character is a big black head with empty eyes pinned on a derisory skeleton. The extended arms are terminated by tiny closed fists translating the illusory aspect of the racial combat. This head is traversed throughout by the Mississippi River. The word Mississippi is inscribed in repetition in the lower part of the image. This river manages to match Hudson, Ohio and Thames.
Removing any doubt as to the political reason of this image, a plaque bears a sharp inscription to Jim Crow, symbol for a century and a half of the racial discrimination. This Jim Crow, a fictional character in the minstrel shows, was a rude Negro from the South conceived to argue the civilized black Zip Coon. The message is clear : despite the laws, the living conditions have not changed since Twain's time.
The hopeless attitude of the character is offset by the dynamism of the rhythmic composition around the wooden slats. In 1986 Basquiat appeared once again as a jazz enthusiast. A tribute to Lester Young 150 x 100 cm was sold for $ 6M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2017.
Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta is a masterpiece of his new way. The obsessively repeated tags accompany the visual message : Mississippi, Mark Twain, Negroes. A banner locates this disguised form of slavery : The Deep South. This 1983 polyptych was sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014.
On October 20, 2017, Christie's sold for € 15M as lot 14 B an acrylic and pencil on wooden parquet 205 x 244 x 4 cm painted in 1986.
The character is a big black head with empty eyes pinned on a derisory skeleton. The extended arms are terminated by tiny closed fists translating the illusory aspect of the racial combat. This head is traversed throughout by the Mississippi River. The word Mississippi is inscribed in repetition in the lower part of the image. This river manages to match Hudson, Ohio and Thames.
Removing any doubt as to the political reason of this image, a plaque bears a sharp inscription to Jim Crow, symbol for a century and a half of the racial discrimination. This Jim Crow, a fictional character in the minstrel shows, was a rude Negro from the South conceived to argue the civilized black Zip Coon. The message is clear : despite the laws, the living conditions have not changed since Twain's time.
The hopeless attitude of the character is offset by the dynamism of the rhythmic composition around the wooden slats. In 1986 Basquiat appeared once again as a jazz enthusiast. A tribute to Lester Young 150 x 100 cm was sold for $ 6M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2017.
1986 Saxaphone
2022 SOLD for $ 13.7M by Sotheby's
Aged 19 in 1979, Jean-Michel Basquiat is playing the saxophone in a jazz band. His lifelong idol is the heroin addicted late African-American Charlie "Bird" Parker whom he crowned as Charles the First in a 1982 painting.
In 1986 Jean-Michel is a famous young artist who will never achieve his lifelong dream of being influential for the African Americans against the WASP establishment. Moreover his new girlfriend succeeded to get out of heroin dependence in a rehabilitation program of which Jean-Michel left after three weeks.
Painted in 1986, Saxaphone is a frenetic tribute to Parker and to the bebop cacophony. The mis-spelling of the title is playful. Tags and signature symbols invade the background behind the saxophone and the band.
The anxious mood of the artist about his own fate is evidenced by his reference at the best place beside the saxophone to the white bebop musician Marmarosa who had played piano beside Parker and was cared in oblivion for mental illness. References to constellations and galaxies are invites to flee to a better world.
Saxaphone, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 168 x 162 cm, was sold for $ 13.7M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2022, lot 127.
In 1986 Jean-Michel is a famous young artist who will never achieve his lifelong dream of being influential for the African Americans against the WASP establishment. Moreover his new girlfriend succeeded to get out of heroin dependence in a rehabilitation program of which Jean-Michel left after three weeks.
Painted in 1986, Saxaphone is a frenetic tribute to Parker and to the bebop cacophony. The mis-spelling of the title is playful. Tags and signature symbols invade the background behind the saxophone and the band.
The anxious mood of the artist about his own fate is evidenced by his reference at the best place beside the saxophone to the white bebop musician Marmarosa who had played piano beside Parker and was cared in oblivion for mental illness. References to constellations and galaxies are invites to flee to a better world.
Saxaphone, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 168 x 162 cm, was sold for $ 13.7M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2022, lot 127.