Corrective Post: Warhol’s “Double Disaster” IS in Sotheby’s Sale

Late last night, I erroneously reported that Lot 16 from Sotheby’s big Wednesday evening Contemporary sale—Warhol’s 1963 “Silver Car Crash [Double Disaster]”—was missing from the auction’s online catalogue. It is, in fact, in the online catalogue, and it is definitely in the sale. (I had questioned whether it might have been withdrawn and said that I would check with the press office this morning, whereupon I deleted the offending post that you may have seen.)

As the press office told me today (after I sent them my link to and screenshot of the webpage that I saw), I had somehow inadvertently engaged the estimate filter to exclude works estimated at over $3.5 million. That explains the “missing” Warhol, which was (and very much still IS) the top-estimated lot in the sale.

This was a highly embarrassing flub on my part, which I deeply regret. I apologize to Sotheby’s and to the readers whom I misled.

So if you have some $60-80 million to spare (the unpublished presale estimate previously provided to me by Sotheby’s press office for “Silver Car Crash”), please don’t hesitate to raise your paddle on Wednesday!