New works by Damien Hirst, including a sheep with a golden horn and a zebra in formaldehyde, are expected to fetch £65m when they go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in September.
The collection, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, is the first by a major living artist to go straight to sale on the open market rather than via a dealer or gallery.
The 223-lot collection unveiled yesterday contains The Golden Calf, Hirst’s largest ever formaldehyde creation, which is expected to fetch £12m. Another, The Black Sheep with the Golden Horn, should sell for more than £2m. Among the cheapest lots are sketches by the artist, which are likely to cost £20,000. “When it comes to the drawing and the inspiration, it is all Damien’s,” said a spokesman for the auction house. “But when it comes to the construction, he employs people in his workshops to do that.”
Sending work straight to auction allows artists to retain greater control over their work and widen the net of buyers. Hirst said it felt “like a natural evolution for contemporary art” but also said he would not stop selling his work through galleries. (The Independent)

	HENRY MOORE FIGURE Estimate: 600.000 - 800.000 GBP Price Raalized: 825.250 GBP (1.036.355 EUR) Sotheby’s - London 15 July 2008
	HERBERT JAMES DRAPER BY SUMMER SEAS Estimate: 200,000 - 300,000 GBP Price Realized: 337,250 GBP Sotheby’s - London 15 July 2008

OSLO—Works by Edvard Munch have increased in price as a result of the 2004 robbery of The Scream and Madonna, the Art Newspaper reports. Another piece by Munch, Girls on a Bridge, sold for $30.8 million at Sotheby’s. It was previously sold for $7.7 million in 1996.
“[Munch's] works got a lot of attention from the robbery at the Munch Museum in 2004,” said Knut Forsberg, director of Blomqvist Auctions in Oslo. “Attention always draws prices up.”
However, Sotheby’s Oslo representative said that “important exhibitions and the Olsen sale [the auction of Munch works by shipping entrepreneur Fred Olsen in February 2006]” were more significant factors than the thefts.

LONDON - Sotheby’s auction house has confirmed that it does not plan to remove the Flemish triptych stolen in Nájera (La Rioja) in 1913. The auction house stated there has been no claim on this work. According to Sotheby’s, it has been in contact with the Spanish Ministry of Culture which confirmed will make no claim on the work. The work is estimated at 750 million Euros and currently belongs to a French family.
The triptych has been sold several times in the past and the current owner purchased it in good faith and has rights over it, added the auction house in the statement issued..
The theme painted in the central part of the work is the lamentation of Christ. The sides portray a pair of donors protected by Saint Peter and Saint Anne. A Flemish triptych from the 16th century by Ambrosius Benson.
When the triptych is closed, in the rear of the doors is the scene of the Temptation of the Garden of Eden.

The two Old Master sessions in London have proved the good trend of the sector, confirming the positive results achieved by Christie’s in the last days. Sales almost totalled 51.5 million pounds and 76.7% of the lots were sold, 93% if we consider their value. The evening sale achieved the second highest profits ever for the sector, with a 42% increase compared to last year’s sales. It is also the second total takings of an Old Master auction ever to be realized in Europe. During the auction, nineteen new records were established and twenty lots were sold for more than a million dollars.

	JEAN-ANTOINE WATTEAU LA SURPRISE Estimate: n.a. Price Realized: 12,361,250 GBP Christie’s - London 08 July 2008
	FRANS HALS PORTRAIT OF WILLEM VAN HEYTHUYSEN Estimate: 3,000,000 - 5,000,000 GBP Price Realized: 7,097,250 GBP Sotheby’s - London 09 July 2008

LONDON - Sotheby’s sale of Old Master Paintings totaled £51,488,650 /$101,530,469/ €64,813,991 well in excess of the pre-sale estimate of £30.2-44.2 million. In a sale that attracted bidders from across the globe, 19 new artist’s records were established, with 58% of the lots sold realising prices in excess of high estimate. Two works sold for over £5 million, four for over $5 million, 13 for over £1 million, and 19 for over $1 million.

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.

	FRANCIS BACON THREE STUDIES FOR SELF-PORTRAIT Estimate: n.a. Price Realized: 17,289,250 GBP Christie’s - London 30 June 2008
	GINO SEVERINI DANSEUSE Estimate: 7,000,000 - 10,000,000 GBP Price Realized: 15,049,250 GBP Sotheby’s - London 25 June 2008

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.