LONDON — Three sketches by Goya, presumed lost for 130 years, sold today for about $8 million.
Christie’s says the sketches first went up for sale in Paris in 1877 and were presumed lost, until a private Swiss collector contacted the auction house about them.
The sketch titled “Bajar Rinendo” or “They Go Down Quarrelling” – which depicts four women fighting as they fall through the air – sold in London for about $4.6 million.
The other two sketches depict a constable stitched inside a dead horse and a wide-eyed man praying in front of a cross.
All the prices include the buyer’s premium.
The sketches come from the private notebooks of Goya, who worked in the Spanish courtly tradition but is also known for the fantastic, dark and often disturbing works he painted later in his career. During the last three decades of his life, the Spanish artist used the notebooks to draw people in various moods and situations. Goya died in 1828.
Previous art auctions by Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses have shown the art market remains strong despite the global economic downturn.
A Monet water lily painting sold for more than $78 million in June, setting a record for the most expensive work of art ever sold by Christie’s in Europe. Sotheby’s sold a portrait by Francis Bacon for $26.9 million during its contemporary art week. Both works sold for well over their estimated values.

One of the most significant bequests to the nation in a century, including masterpieces by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, goes on public display from today.
The exhibition of the 18 masterpieces, at Tate Britain, London, is likely to be the first and last opportunity to view the £100m collection in its entirety before the works are split between the Tate and the National Gallery.
Simon Sainsbury, the British philanthropist and art collector who died in 2006, left the pieces to the two institutions – five to the National, with the rest to be housed by the Tate. Some, such as Freud’s Boy Smoking, have not been seen by the public since 1954. Paul Gauguin’s Bowl of Fruit and Tankard before a Window has not been exhibited since 1936.
The pieces left to the Tate include three works by Freud, a rare early work by Bacon, Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Carter, and three works by the French artist, Balthasar Klossowski de Rola. Two pieces by the French painter, Pierre Bonnard, Nude in the Bath and The Yellow Boat, will make the Tate one of the principal places to see his work outside Paris.
Other works include the gallery’s first “conversation piece” by the German painter Johan Zoffany, and an oil painting of a hunt by the English artist John Wootton, who specialised in sporting subjects. The National Gallery will receive impressionist and post-impressionist works, including Monet’s Snow Scene at Argenteuil and Water-Lilies, Setting Sun.
Simon Sainsbury had a passionate interest in the arts, particularly 18th and 19th century architecture and art. Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate Galleries, said the gift would “transform” the Tate’s ability to show a number of artists in depth. He said it was “one of the most important in the history of Tate” and would greatly enhance its collection.
Nicholas Penny, the National Gallery’s director, said the bequest would make a “huge difference to our impressionist and post-impressionist galleries”.
(The Independent)

In the last few weeks, London city has proved to be the European capital of the art market. With sales dedicated to the modern and impressionist sector, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have confirmed the good state of the market. Indeed, the “Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale” held on 24th June fetched 144 million pounds (284 million dollars), achieving the highest total for a European auction and giving “Le bassin aux nymphèas” by Claude Monet the new world record for the artist, selling the piece for 41 million pounds.

LONDON - The July 2008 Evening Sale of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s London achieved the phenomenal sum of £94,701,550 ($188,853,831) against a pre-sale estimate of £67.4 – 96.6 million, making it the most successful Summer sale of Contemporary Art in Europe. The sale had numerous high points throughout the evening, with records achieved for 11 different artists.

A Richard Prince “Nurse” and an Antony Gormley “Angel of the North” were among 10 works to set records for their makers at Sotheby’s contemporary-art auction in London, where a Francis Bacon portrait was the star attraction and Irish rock band U2 among the sellers.
Bacon’s status as the world’s most expensive postwar artist was bolstered last night by the sale of a painting of his lover George Dyer, which fetched a top price of 13.8 million pounds ($27.5 million) with fees.
Sotheby’s is testing demand after wealthy buyers from Russia and elsewhere shrugged off economic slowdown to pay record prices in New York in May. Yesterday’s auction made a total 94.7 million pounds with fees, the second highest for a contemporary-art sale in Europe, said Sotheby’s. Former tennis champion John McEnroe sold an Andy Warhol portrait and U2 sold a Jean-Michel Basquiat.
“People are more interested in quality than price”, London dealer Serge Tiroche said. “In the old days they used to look at a work’s size and period. Now they’re looking at aesthetics”.
Sotheby’s said 71 of the 75 lots found buyers. The sale had been estimated to make 67.4 million pounds to 96.6 million pounds. Its total missed the 95 million pounds made by Sotheby’s, London, in February. (Bloomberg)

London – Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale took place this evening (30 June 2008) and realised £86,241,600 / $171,879,508 / €108,578,174 - the highest total for the category at Christie’s in Europe.  The top lot of the auction was Three Studies for a Self Portrait by Francis Bacon (1909-1992), a rare self-portrait triptych that the artist painted while in Paris in 1975, which sold for £17,289,250 / $34,457,475 / €21,767,166.

A 1975 set of three self-portraits by Francis Bacon fetched 17.3 million pounds ($34.5 million) in London, the most expensive lot at Christie’s International sale of contemporary art.
At least four bidders competed for the 14-inch-high, gray- hued oil canvases “Three Studies for Self-Portrait”, featuring faces that are twisted, sliced and gorged. The lot, with a presale estimate of more than 10 million pounds and seen in public for the first time, went to an anonymous phone bidder. The record for Bacon was set in May when “Triptych, 1976″, depicting a headless corpse eaten by vultures sold for $86 million.
Christie’s 58-lot auction last night netted 86.2 million pounds, against the company’s own low estimate of 80 million pounds. Eighty-three percent of the lots were sold. Bacon’s piece was one of four trophy works - the other three are by Lucian Freud, Jeff Koons and Lucio Fontana - whose combined estimates represented half the auction’s value. The Bacon was the only one that sold for much more than its top estimate.
Koons’s 11-foot, 2-inch-high chromium-steel sculpture “Balloon Flower (Magenta)” sold for an artist record of 12.9 million pounds, against a presale estimate of 12 million pounds. Freud’s 1980 canvas, “Naked Portrait With Reflection”, showing a nude model reclining on a battered sofa, sold for 11.8 million pounds, compared with a top estimate 15 million pounds. (Bloomberg)

CHELSEA PATRON HAS DISCOVERED A PASSION FOR ART COLLECTIONS THANKS TO NEW FIANCÉ

translated by Giorgina Arcuri

Roman Abramovich, the forty-year old businessman of Russian origins, seems to be tired of dealing only in real-estate properties, yachts and football teams (for Chelsea he has so far spent a billion dollars). As for many Russian oligarchs, Abramovich’s new “toy” is art. Indeed, on 12th June 2008 the super-billionaire inaugurated in Moscow a new gallery centre, event that attracted to the Russian capital great names of worldwide art, such as the famous art gallery owner Larry Gagosian, director of the Tate Modern and of the Hermitage, but also many VIPs of the International Jet Set.

Here you are the most interesing prices of last days.