On Thursday 18th December Palazzo Broggi, prestigious Milanese venue of Sotheby’s Italy, is going to auction a parade of 106 extraordinary lots, nineteenth-century paintings and sculptures. 
The top lot is expected for an exceptional triad represented by the painters Emilio Longoni, Giovanni Boldini and Adolfo Tommasi, all estimated at about 100,000€.
The ball is led off by the highest estimate (320,000-420,000€) for “Alba” (Sunrise) by Emilio Longoni, work conceived in 1905 while the artist was staying in Val Malenco and exhibited the same year at the sixth edition of the Venice biennial.

After the ups and downs seen at auctions in the last few days, where experts could only wish away and confirm alternately a crisis of the art market, there are still interesting proposals and the response to current fears seems to be to not lose heart and focus the attention on important names and mind-boggling predictions. After Malevich, Degas and Munch, who achieved records last week at Sotheby’s New York auction, now it seems to be Basquiat’s turn, as after 2007 he could set a new record at Christie’s “Post-war and contemporary art” auction.

After Picasso’s withdrawn Harlequin, Sotheby’s New York auction, despite the high level of pieces put up for auction, seemed to have taken a worrying turn as at the last moment it was stripped of one of its most prestigious paintings.
Actually, the auction achieved a discrete success, untangling even the last fears and predictions on the trend of the art market, establishing 3 records in a single session and totalling 223,812,500 dollars.

A precious painting by Pablo Picasso was the announced star of Sotheby’s upcoming auction to be held on 3rd November in New York. In just a few days Sotheby’s will put up for auction all high-level proposals, in the session dedicated to impressionist and modern art, which includes in its élitist range of choices various pieces by Degas, Munch, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet, Kandinskij and Picasso.
Yesterday, a sudden and unexpected change of course was announced, then published on the New York Times, regarding the piece that was considered one of the highlights of the event: Picasso’s “Arlequin” from 1909 has been withdrawn from the auction; this painting was estimated at more than 30 million dollars, equivalent to about 24 million euros.

Washington and Piacenza, apparently two places that having nothing to do with each other, but now have a common denominator, proposed by an exhibition that celebrates simultaneously in the same venue art masterpieces from these cities.  From 15th September to 18th January 2009 Palazzo Baldeschi al Corso in Perugia is hosting the exhibition “Corot to Picasso. Fattori to De Pisis” dedicated to the famous American Phillips Collection and to the Italian Collection of Ricci Oddi .
The exhibition, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi, is promoted by the Foundation Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia which is thus celebrating the Saving Bank’s 100th year.