Regarded as the world’s largest art show, The European Art Fair (TEFAF) was scheduled to return bigger than ever, and delivered with the arrival of the rare $7.5 million George Washington portrait.

Constructed by the artist Gilbert Stuart, the portrait has been on display and is still available for $7.5 million by the first-time exhibitor Hammer Galleries of New York. Rarely known for this timely shelf life, pieces such as this are sure to be sold by the TEFAF close. Priced at an even more considerable price, the gallery will feature Amedeo Modigliani’s Jeune fille assise, les chaveux dénoués.

Much like in years past, TEFAF has offered some of the rarest collectible items in the art industry. Not to be outdone, the 2010 TEFAF’s over-sized portrait of the first United States president George Washington (1822) enamored attendees on the first day.

Also known as the Maastricht Fair, the multi-day art and antique show is a collective cornucopia of the world’s most sought after collectibles. In last year alone, 67,000 attendees arrived to admire and purchase over $1 billion worth of items.

In addition to the art and collectible sections, the Maastricht Fair will unveil their new section, TEFAF on Paper (works on paper).

This year the show is programmed to run from March 12 to 21, 2010 at the 300,000 square-foot Maastricht Convention Center.

-Affluent Page

[TEFAF]

My work is about people:  how they look, how they act; how they endure hardship and celebrate joy. The landscape of people is a dramatic terrain, full of vitality, often funny, sometimes sad, but like the weather, always changing.  I change too as I search about, trying to make sense of it all.
-Judith Peck

Judith Peck’s exquisite craftsmen ship has her sitting comfortably in the upper echelon of the sculpting community.

Her work is displayed in over eighty private and public collections including the American Art Collection of the Yale University Gallery, Ghetto Fighters Museum in Israel, West Palm Beach Florida Library, Teaneck Public Library (New Jersey), Tenafly New Jersey High School, Ridgewood, New Jersey Train Station, and other institutions throughout New York, Maryland, and Israel.

Peck’s know-how comes from her two master’s degrees in sculpture and art education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her doctoral degree from New York University. She currently teaches art at Ramapo College in Mahwah, N.J.

She is featured in Who’s Who in American Art, the World’s Who’s Who of Women, and the Smithsonian Institute’s publication, “Designing Public Art”. Peck has authored six books on the creative process, including Sculpture as Experience: Working with Clay, Wire, Wax, Plaster, and Found Objects.

[View Site]
201 529 5105
judithpeck@optonline.net

A variety of Cartier items including a 1929 table clock, Grand sonnerie desk clock, platinum tank watch, as well as two Patek Phillipe watches, highlight Patrizzi & Co.’s upcoming auction.

Taking place on March 9th, “Timeless Emotions – Collecting Pocket Watches, Wristwatches & Clocks” will display over 150 vintage timepieces along side an astounding collection from Cartier, including wristwatches, clocks, and pocket watches. Prospective buyers can bid in a variety of ways: on site, phone, in writing, or in real time online via the Patrizzi website.

Patrizzi is estimating the 1929 platinum tank “Louis Cartier” wristwatch (with its original platinum bracelet) to go between $80,000 – $100,000, and the two Patek Phillipes Ref. 2526 – which were the first of the brand to wind automatically – to go between $110,000 – $140,000. The table and desk clock can be estimated upon request. The desk clock was previously owned by the son of former New York City Mayor, Hugh L. Grant.

“This will be the most important sale of Cartier timepieces since 1996. The table clock is exquisite. It’s extremely rare to find a large Comet clock with the grand sonnerie, moon phases and calendar,” said Osvaldo Patrizzi, president and chief executive officer of Patrizzi & Co.

Before the mallet goes down at 2 pm on the 9th, these items will make the trek to Hong Kong. From February 27 to March 1, this collection will be exhibited in Patruzzi’s new Honk Kong office. An additional silent auction will with some 100 additional pieces from the likes of Rolex, Cartier, Piaget, Omega, Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger LeCoultre offered.

The timepieces will make their final stop at Patrizzi’s Madison Avenue showroom in New York on March 6th, where they will be previewed until the 9th. A similar silent auction will take place during this time as well.

Following last November’s successful Part I of a sale of Meissan porelain which garnered over £1 million, Bonham’s ”Hoffmeister Collection of Meissen Porcelain Part II” will take place on May 26 in New Bond Street, London at 10:30 am.

This much-anticipated sale will include two items previously owned by Pope Benedict XIV, a cup and saucer. These items were given to him by Augustus III, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland in 1743. Bonham’s estimate for these items is £6,000-£8,000; sold together.

Another strong selection of this auction is an important Meissan circular stand circa 1725-1730. This item was formerly in the pre-war collection Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, and features beautiful chinoiserie decoration. Estimate for this lot is £100,000-£150,000. This auction also includes examples from famous historic collections, such as the Royal collections of Saxony, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Russia and Baden.

2010 marks the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Meissan factory, Europe’s first porcelain factory. The Hoffmeister Collection is one of the most important private collections of 18th-century Meissen porcelain in the world; nothing close to this has been on the market in years.

[Bonhams]

Highlighted by Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Lili ou Tony, which is estimated at €200,000-€300,000, Sotheby’s auction house’s sale of the former Peter Stuyvesant Collection (now property of British American Tobacco) is the largest sampling of post-war and contemporary art to go under the mallet in the Netherlands.

Set to take place in Amsterdam on March 8, this sale features 163 works from notable artists such as: Karel Appel, Jan Schoonhoven, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Martin Kippenberger, Robert Mangold, Corneille, Jesus Rafael Soto, Gunther Uecker, Victor Vasarely, Arman, Alighiero Boetti, Alan Davie, Simon Hantaï, Mike Kelley, Per Kirkeby, Wilfredo Lam, Robert S. Matta, Kenneth Noland, Romeinse Opalka, Serge Poliakoff, Manuel Rivera, David Salle and Giuseppe Santomaso.
Two other highlights from this sale are Jan Schoonhoven’s Squarerelief with Diagonals, estimated at €100,000-€150,000, and Victor Vasarely’s Pal-5, with an estimate of €80,000 – €120,000.

The entire collection will exhibited the week prior.

[Sotheby's]

Sotheby’s has 16 auctions on the docket for March, each one offering up something unique that you can’t find anywhere else.

Featuring sales in New York, Paris, London and Amsterdam, Sotheby’s has some of the most exquisite items for you to bid on. On the 8th, the “Bat Artventure Collection formerly known as The Peter Stuyvesant Collection” is highlighted by Martin Kippenberger’s Dinosaurierei (€200,000-300,000). The next day, Andy Warhol’s Self Defense ($250,000-350,000) is set be sold at Sotheby’s “Contemporary Art” sale.

Later in the month, a Rare Giltwood Armchair, Régence, circa 1715-1720 (€250,000-350,000) is the prize piece at the “Collection Violette de Talleyrand, Duchesse de Sagan, Former Collection Gaston Palewski” auction. An Important Malangan Figure from Northern New Ireland (€250,000-350,000, above) is part of the “Rosenthal Collection, Oceanic Art” sale on the 24th.

[Sotheby's]

Sotheby’s London will be hosting the summer auction, Evening Sale of Old Master and British Paintings on July 7^th. An estimated 57 pieces will be showcased, but Joseph Mallord William Turner’s eye-catching Modern Rome –Campo Vaccino will take center stage, as the most anticipated item for sale. The 1839 landscape painting is considered to be “undoubtedly among the most important of Turner’s works”. Turner’s first visits of Rome inspired the dream-like painting which depicts Turner’s 20 year fascination of the city.

The highly respected work of art, still in its original frame, remains in immaculate condition. Since being purchased from its first exhibition in 1839 at the Royal Academy by Turner’s good friend it has never been restored or relined. The preservation of the painting demonstrates Turner’s career peak of technical powers.

The painting is expected to gross between $12 million and $18 million.

Sothebys

~Affluent Page

On November 27, travelers to Mexico will soon be able to explore the captivating underwater museum — the largest in the world.

The museum will feature a collection of life-sized sculptures, creating “The Silent Evolution.” A series that depicts the history of man from ancient Mayan civilizations up to today. These life-size figurines depict actual people, with realistic gestures and positions.

It  will be part of the National Park in Cancun. Four hundred sculptures have already been submerged in the Caribbean waters, off the Yuctan Peninsula in Mexico’s eastern state of Quintana Roo.

These magnificent sculptures will be available for tourists and visitors that wish to admire the originality, beauty and uniqueness of these works of art, while snorkeling or dive in the sub aquatic museum, as one of the many activities to do in Cancun and Isla Mujeres. Not only can the underwater museum be seen while beneath the depths of the sea, but collectively the pieces also form the shape of a human eye when viewed from below.

The sculptures have been designed to be durable and will have no detrimental effect on the local ecosystem. The conservation of coral is at the forefront of many environmentalists’ minds. They are made of ph-neutral concrete, which will hopefully attract algae and marine life.

“It all happens rather quickly — within two weeks we will see green algae,” says artist Jason de Caires Taylor, who is in charge of the project. “Then within a few months, juvenile algae will appear and the project will progress from there.”

-Affluent Page

www.underwatersculptures.com

Originally considered controversial, Pablo Picasso’s Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto has returned to Christie’s with a record pre-sale estimate of $45-60 million.

Dated in 1903, Picasso’s piece was initially pulled from a 2006 sale over an alleged Nazi link. Now, after nearly four years in limbo, individuals will finally have an opportunity to own this piece of history.

Crafted in the Picasso’s Blue Period, the man within the painting is awkwardly, yet captivatingly seated with the accompaniment of a glass of Absinthe and a pipe emitting swirls of smoke. Fernandez de Soto was nicknamed “The Absinthe Drinker.”

Once offered to Christie’s by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, sales from this revered item will go to the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, which promotes arts and culture in Britain.

Collectors and enthusiasts alike are anxiously waiting to see if Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto will break the auction record of Giacometti’s L’Homme qui marche I sculpture, established in February at Sotheby’s for a staggering $104.3 million.

This stunning masterpiece will be available on June 23rd in London, England at 7pm.

-Affluent Page

[Christie's]

Featuring roughly 350 lots, Christie’s will auction off an assortment of sculptures, vases, bronzes, and a selection of ancient jewelry this April.

Set to take place on the 29th in South Kensington, this is the first Antiquities sale since Georgiana Aitken was appointed head of the Antiquities department. The most expensive item is a Roman marble statue of a young satyr with a panther, from late 2^nd/early 3^rd century (£400,000-600,000, above). The other two highlights from this sale are a Roman marble torso of Aphrodite from the 1st century (£180,000-220,000), and an Apulian fish plate from the Gil and Myrna Goldfine Collection (£4,000-5,000).

Further important works featured in the sale include a Roman marble bust of a satyr, which was previously part of the famed Castellani Collection (£80,000-120,000); a Roman marble portrait bust of a boy (£80,000-120,000); an Attic red-figure vase by the Berlin Painter (£70,000-90,000); an Achaemenid rod-formed glass kohl vessel (£8,000-10,000); a Roman snake-thread green glass beaker from the Rhineland (£60,000-80,000), a Greek agate ram’s head (£40,000-60,000) and a private European collection of Mycenean pottery and Greek bronzes.

All of the items will be available for public viewing from April 24-28. The auction begins at 11am the morning of the 29th.

-Affluent Page

[Christie's]