Andy Warhol’s Favorite Things Fetch Big Bids : Auction of Pop Artist’s Collection Sets Records
Sotheby’s 10-day auction of the late Andy Warhol’s collection got off to a wildly successful start Saturday. The sale lived up to advance publicity with record bids for decorative art pieces and took in more than $5.3 million on opening day.
The auction house had predicted that Saturday’s sales of art nouveau and art deco works would total between $1.5 million and $2.2 million, but as soon as the bidding began it seemed obvious that was too modest. The overflow crowd was dominated by dealers eagerly competing for objects the pop artist acquired on his daily shopping sprees and stashed away in his six-story townhouse.
An ebonized wooden table by Charles Rennie Mackintosh brought the day’s top price, $275,000 (including a 10% buyer’s premium) from an anonymous collector and also set a record for the Scottish designer.
Two sycamore and sharkskin consoles by Pierre Legrain fetched $209,000 each from an unidentified dealer and established records for that French furniture maker.
During the morning session, devoted to silver and jewelry, many items drew double or triple the pre-sale estimates and a few pieces fetched 10 times the predicted prices. A gold, silver, ivory and bloodstone brooch, designed by Jean Despres and expected to bring between $1,500 and $2,000, went for $22,000. A Despres ring assessed at $1,800 to $2,500 brought $28,600.
Silver designed by Jean E. Puiforcat captured five of the seven highest prices paid in the morning. The most expensive piece, a silver and aventurine tureen and cover, was purchased for $55,000 by Gordon Watson of the Lewis Kaplan Gallery in London. An anonymous New York dealer bought a Puiforcat tea and coffee set for $44,000.
Although Watson repeatedly bid as much as 10 times an object’s estimated value, he said he was paying “the sort of prices a good dealer asks” for such materials.
Other dealers agreed that the estimates were low and snapped up nearly everything that came under auctioneer John L. Marion’s gavel. During the six-hour sale, only two of the 381 lots--a silver lipstick case and a pair of bronze door handles designed by Diego Giacometti--failed to sell.
Although the opening session was a stunning success, Sotheby’s officials were reluctant to forecast runaway prices for the remaining nine days of the auction.
“This sale was without question the highest in quality and the most consistent. It is not a bellwether,” Dede Brooks of the auction house said.
A sale of less expensive collectibles, jewelry, furniture, decorations and paintings today, Monday and Tuesday is expected to attract a less affluent crowd. The items include Miss Piggy memorabilia, space toys, Bakelite bracelets and more than 300 cookie jars. “We already have several thousand order bids on the cookie jars,” Brooks said.
More expensive jewelry and a cache of wristwatches will go on the block Wednesday, followed by American Indian art works on Thursday.
Warhol’s items of Americana and European and American paintings, drawings and prints will be offered Friday and Saturday. The final sale, on May 2 and 3, will offer his collection of contemporary art.
