Date: Fri 02-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: MARYG

Quick Words:

Degas-Ballet-Sotheby's

Full Text:

Degas Ballet Dancer Sells For $27,930,020 At Sotheby's June 28, London

LONDON -- Edgar Degas' outstanding pastel of a ballet dancer sold for a record

œ17,601,500 at Sotheby's in London, Monday, June 28, setting a world record

for the artist at auction and becoming the most expensive work on paper ever

sold at auction.

"Danseuse au repos" is an exquisite work from Degas' famous series of studies

of young ballet dancers which he began in the late 1870s. It was bought by an

anonymous private collector bidding on the telephone who paid the exceptional

price of œ17,601,500 ($27,930,020) against a pre-sale estimate of œ5-7

million.

"Danseuse au repos" was executed circa 1879 and until now had not been seen

anywhere outside Paris. French businessman Jules-Emile Boivin, a friend of the

artist, purchased the pastel from the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris in 1885 for

FF 1,200, and it had remained in the family's collection until the auction.

The sale raised a total of $79,101,076, making it the highest total ever at

Sotheby's in London for a mixed owner sale of Impressionist and Modern Art.

Melanie Clore, deputy chairman of Sotheby's Europe and head of Sotheby's

Impressionist and Modern Art Department in London, said, "The sale was

extremely successful, with high prices being paid across the board for

Impressionist, classic Modern and Italian Futurist works. Buyers were

predominantly from North America and Europe and there was strong bidding and

underbidding from the Far East. Two new bidders bought works from the top ten

most expensive lots.

"We were particularly pleased with the price achieved for the Degas which was

a stunning image and also completely fresh to the market, having been in the

same family collection since 1885. The price achieved for the Matisse, which

sold for more than three times its low pre-sale estimate, was exceptional,

reflecting the keenness of two people both eager to acquire it. This sale

raised the highest total ever for a various-owners sale at Sotheby's in

London."

The sale featured a second work by Degas also from the Boivin family

collection, "Femme assise devant un piano," which sold for œ3,081,500

($4,889,720). Executed around 1882-85 and originally purchased for FF 1,500,

the pastel belongs to the artist's series of portraits of women in interiors.

It shows a woman reading a score of music in front of a piano, while holding a

parasol in her outstretched hand.

The second highest price paid was for Henri Matisse's "Robe Jaune et Robe

Arlequin (Nezy et Lydia)," 1940, which sold for œ7,151,500 ($11,347,980)

against a pre-sale low estimate of œ2 million. A beautifully balanced and rich

work, it showed Matisse's blond-haired muse Lydia, wearing a boldly-patterned

dress, sitting next to a friend who is wearing a bright yellow dress. It was

painted in the rooms at the Hotel Regina in Nice, Matisse's home and studio in

the south of France, and the work illustrates the bold and decorative style

typical of this period when Matisse turned his back on the outside world and

concentrated almost exclusively on the interior of his hotel room.

Claude Monet's "Nympheas" from 1908, seen by the thousands of visitors to the

record-breaking exhibition "Monet in the Twentieth Century" at the Royal

Academy of Art in London, sold for œ3,081,500 ($4,889,720). The work belongs

to Monet's celebrated Waterlily Series in which he explores the effects of the

varying of light and climatic conditions on the lily pond in his garden in

Giverny.

Rene Magritte's "L'empire des Lumieres" sold for œ2,311,5000 ($3,667,880). An

imaginative and enduring image, it incorporates two of the great icons of

Surrealism: the reconciliation of opposites (night and day are depicted in the

same painting), and the anonymity of the bowler-hatted man as a hidden

self-portrait of the artist. The painting had been acquired directly from the

artist by the present vendors soon after it was painted in 1965.

In addition to the strong prices achieved by Impressionist works, there were

also high prices paid for the works of the Italian Futurist Gino Severini

whose "Danseuse" (Ballerina in Blue) from 1913 sold for œ1,156,500

($1,835,130) against a pre-sale low estimate of œ600,000.

Wassily Kandinsky's superb Bauhaus watercolor from 1923, "Aquarelle

Mouvementee," sold for œ826,500 ($1,311,490) against a pre-sale low estimate

of œ300,000.