Matisse, “Bouquet de Fleurs pour le Quatorze Juillet,” 1919
Poor Tobias Meyer was pulling teeth at tonight’s Impressionist/modern sale at Sotheby’s, trying to extract a few extra increments from bidders who finally managed to cough up $25.5 million (slightly above the $18 million to $25 million presale estimate) for the top lot—Matisse‘s decorative “Bouquet de Fleurs Pour le Quatorze Juillet.” (Including the buyer’s premium, the price was $28.64 million.) This offering was supported by an irrevocable bid, which was not indicated in the catalogue but was announced at the sale.
The floral was painted by Matisse in 1919 on France’s national holiday, July 14, Bastille Day. But there were no fireworks in the saleroom, judging from the sluggish pace of bidding (much of it by phone from Asia, according to Kelly Crow‘s Wall Street Journal report). I followed some of the action at home, via Sotheby’s live computer feed.
“Are we all done?” the hardworking, somewhat exasperated auctioneer repeatedly queried during the many lulls in the Matisse tussle. Several times during the evening, Meyer had to resist thifty buyers’ attempts to chisel bidding increments below levels that he deemed reasonable.
One work that did handily trounce its presale estimate was Noguchi‘s sinuous bronze nude, “Undine,” conceived in 1926 and cast in 1927:
Noguchi, “Undine,” 1927, 76 3/4 inches high
This piece had come up in a conversation that I had Tuesday night with Bonnie Rychlak, the Noguchi Museum’s curator, who was sitting next to me at the dinner celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Queens, NY, museum. I had decided (wisely I think) that I’d rather hear several Philip Glass
pieces, mesmerizingly played on a Steinway by the composer himself,
than an endless recitation of prices in the melliflous tones of
auctioneer Christopher Burge at that night’s record-setting Christie’s auction.
Philip Glass at the Noguchi Museum Tuesday night
Bonnie mentioned to me that the sculpture being auctioned this week was a particularly fine and interesting one—unusual because, although Noguchi generally “didn’t like bronze,” this early work was conceived for that medium (not cast later from a sculpture that had originated in a different material).
The statue is also unusual because it is unlike the abstractions for which the artist is best known. That didn’t deter the cognoscenti, who bid it up to more than four times its $600,000-900,000 presale estimate. It was knocked down at $3.7 million ($4.23 million with premium, an auction record for the artist).
The sale’s hammer price totaled $171.27 million, against a presale estimate of $141 million to $204 million. The sale total including the buyer’s premium was $195.7 million, compared to $335.55 million at Christie’s on Tuesday night (beefed up by the $106.48-million Picasso).
Sotheby’s auction was a very respectable 87.7% sold by lot, 92.4% by value. Seven of the 57 lots failed to find buyers. Full results are here.