SUMMER 2014: FINE ART AUCTION LIST #1
This is a VERY informal chat about some of the famous CELEBRITY ARTISTS works on paper and canvas that I’ll be offering at the MemFest Fine Art Charity Auction this coming weekend. Most of the prices realized will in fact be far into the wholesale. I don’t expect any of it to sell at retail or gallery prices, and to raise money for our Ashram, it doesn’t have to. We own these pieces and the full price goes to charity, not a penny lost. However, there is a Government Catch 22 — the tax folks will take the current market value off your donation numbers, unless you make more than $22 Million per year, in which case, everything you do is tax-free.
MARC CHAGALL — THE TRAP — M355 (Mourlot catalog raisonne #355). Cover for Derriere le Miroir no. 132, Paris, June 1962, format 11 1/32″ x 14 15/16″. Hand-printed on lithographic stone before lettering. 75 copies were printed on Arches, with full wide margins, pencil-numbered & signed by the artist. There were also a few artist’s proofs. Maeght, Publisher.
Estimate: $600-$800.
This is a lovely Marc Chagall Original Work on Paper, . It’s an actual stone lithograph by Chagall, printed by Maeght, June 1962, signed in the plate; it was used as a cover for the famous loose-bound French art journal, Derriere Le Miroir (Behind the Mirror). As you can see, the artwork was “overprinted” in black ink to create the cover text. The piece can be mounted to mask the text if desired, but actually, it’s your guarantee of authenticity.
I wouldn’t want to swear on a stack of pancakes that a pencil-signed version of this is genuine, because most of them on the market, especially on eBay, which is an unrestricted and unmonitored sales arena, just plain aren’t real — and that goes double for the David Teniers paintings offered on that site and elsewhere. Don’t trust anyone but Christie’s for Teneris, believe me.
This stunning, colorful and large ORIGINAL CHAGALL work on paper sells for less than $1,000! You can buy the pencil-signed version — it’s exactly the same except for a small smear of graphite below the image area — for about $35,000 more, if you’ve got too much money on your hands and need to get rid of some fast. On a wall, in a stunningly beautiful frame, who’s looking down below the image for a pencil signature? Most folks don’t even know to look, much less where to look, and when they see something, they don’t know what it is or what it means. All that counts is the image, not the graphite smear below.
Of course, in order to make an intelligent decision on this piece, you need the particulars. Those will be given verbally at the time of the auction, but you can see the data right here, below this paragraph. You’ll have this image and the catalog data to which you can refer as necessary during the competitive bidding. Every piece has an official title, catalog number and market range, but these are only necessary at the time of the auction, to correctly identify which piece it is on which you’re bidding at the moment, to avoid mistakes in bidding or registry.
How can I research this print, out of the thousands produced over the years by Marc Chagall, one of France’s top-ten most famous painters? Easy as pi. I have the full Mourlot catalogue raissone — which set me back a cool $55,000 because they contain tons of Chagall originals worth much more when taken out of the catalogues. I also have Gordon’s Print Index at my disposal, with all the volumes up to last year (I have to buy this year’s annual today, I remind myself — another $350 bucks down the tube) and more. I have more cost in my reference books than in the artwork, typically.
We do all the paperwork, so you can concentrate on the artwork itself. Rest assured, however, that all artworks offered by me at any time are 100% guaranteed authentic, and to be exactly as stated, and that guarantee is good forever, and I’m probably the only one within 100 light-years who can stand behind that guarantee.
Okay, enough with the multiverse jokes, on with the tour. Please keep your hands and other protuberances well within the vehicle until it has come to a complete stop and normality has been achieved.
B-69 — REMBRANDT HARMENZ VAN RIJN — Christ Driving the Moneychangers From the Temple. State II/II. Signed & Dated Rembrandt f. 1635. Haarlem workshop. John 2:13-17.
Estimate: $700-$1100.
Here’s a chance to own a real, original Rembrandt etching at a fraction of the usual cost. Why? Because condition is everything, that’s why. This print has seen better days. People used to save them between the pages of their family bibles. They didn’t get put in frames and hung on walls until fairly recently.
You can’t place this anywhere that’s got too much sunlight, even if you frame it in a UV-resistant frame, which you should, even in this wretched condition, because it’s a fact that as more and more Rembrandts are taken off the public market — once they go into an official collection, they don’t come back out and are lost to the collector market — the remaining prints on the market tend to go up because there are fewer and fewer of them, period, just like stamps, coins and trading cards.
I’m off to the art print storage cases to see what else I can dig up that’s priced right and looks spectacular enough to qualify as a fine art charity auction blue-chip loss-leader…
See You At The Top!!!
gorby