Some People Will Need To Pay Up
After 50 years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be changing its admission policy. Their current pay what you like policy does not seem to be working out, so now they will charge $25 for visitors who do not live … More…
Gutting A Collection To Pay The Bills
It was just announced that the trustees of La Salle University have decided to sell off 46 works of art from their collection to help fund “teaching and learning initiatives”. As you can guess, this has set off a firestorm … More…
We Are Getting Out Of Control
I really do not know what to say about this. It was recently reported that a teacher in Utah took a set of postcards, featuring works of art, from the school library and passed them around their elementary school classroom. … More…
The Chinese Have a Voracious Appetite … and Not For Food!
It appears that the Chinese are now becoming one of the largest acquirers of art and certain antiques (Chinese antiques that is). There are paying record prices and spending billions upon billions. If they keep up the current pace, 2018 … More…
The Dark Side: Ezra Chowaiki continued…
In Volume 204 of our Comments on the Art Market, we briefly covered the charges brought against art dealer, Ezra Chowaiki. Since then, more information has come to light regarding the now bankrupt art gallery and its crooked dealer. The … More…
A Tangled Web – Rybolovlev, Bouvier & Sotheby’s
Stephanie Baker and Hugo Miller give us more insight into the ongoing legal battle between Rybolovlev & Bouvier. Now, according to Rybolovlev’s lawyers, there was another big player involved — Sotheby’s vice chairman of private sales — Samuel Valette. It … More…
Will They Cash In?
Even though Christie’s claimed that Salvator Mundi was the last da Vinci in private hands, it appears that there are at least two, and maybe three, more: The Madonna of the Yarnwinder, which is on view at the National Galleries of Scotland; The … More…
Art Market Opacity – Guarantees
Art Market Opacity: Since the da Vinci sale, more information about the backroom deals auction houses make has been coming to light. Katya Kazakina gives us an overview of the benefits and risks of auction guarantees. As Ed Dolman (Phillips … More…
AVAILABLE: Fritz Zuber-Buhler’s “Jeune fille”
A very recent addition to our available online inventory. An exquisite study of a young girl by the 19th century Swiss artist Fritz Zuber-Buhler (1822-1896). The artist was born in Le Locle, Switzerland in 1822 and by the age of … More…
Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist sales in London
Christie’s and Sotheby’s offered up their Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist art earlier this week over in London and the results were uninspiring. Without the buyer’s premium, neither sale made it into the pre-sale estimate range and both left a … More…
Dumb Things People Do at Art Fairs
Dumb Things People Do at Art Fairs was published in The Epoch Times a few months after my article Dumb Things People Say To Art Dealers . I am still not sure why these links popped up the other day, but they … More…
Dumb Things People Say to Art Dealers
I have no idea why, but for some reason a link to an article of mine, that was published on The Epoch Times’ website, popped-up this morning. While I wrote it a few years ago, it still rings true. I … More…
Christie’s London: 19th Century European
Christie’s, London, presented their 19th century painting sale on the 14th and as I have said in the past, what a difference one painting can make! Taking the top spot here was a preparatory study for Eugene Delacroix’s famous painting … More…
AGO Gets More Time – Saga Continues
On Wednesday the Massachusetts Appeals Court granted the AGO and their investigators more time to finish reviewing the Berkshire Museum’s planned sale of some 40 works of art. While he gave them until January 29th to finish, he also required … More…
Sotheby’s London: 19th Century European
Today we had Sotheby’s sale of 19th century works of art. While this sale covers the same period of art we see in the New York sales, they usually contain a slightly different mix of works – more Spanish, Swedish, … More…
AVAILABLE: Andre Hambourg’s “À Trouville an Août”
We just added this little gem by the 20th century French artist Andre Hambourg to our available online inventory. According to Wikipedia: Trouville-sur-Mer, commonly referred to as Trouville, is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in … More…