NEW YORK, NY.- On May 9,
Doyle New York held a series of three successful sales – American Art, European Art, and Modern & Contemporary Art. The day’s total surpassed $5 million amid strong international bidding.
Highlighting the American Art was an important pastel by James Abbott McNeill Whistler that set a new world auction record for a work on paper by Whistler. Estimated at $100,000-150,000, the pastel sold to a bidder in the salesroom for a staggering $650,500. The work had descended in in the family of American Gilded Age collectors Louisine and Henry O. Havemeyer. Whistler first visited Venice in September 1879 and fell in love with the city. He created one hundred pastels, which he described as being "totally new and of a brilliancy very different from the customary watercolor." In 1881, the prominent American collector Louisine Havemeyer (Mrs. Henry O. Havemeyer) visited Whistler in his studio and purchased a number of Venetian pastels. White and Pink (The Palace) was consigned to the sale by a descendant of the Havemeyers.
Carnival of Autumn Leaves, an abstract work by Washington Color School artist Alma Thomas (American, 1891-1978) fetched $254,500, far surpassing its estimate of $100,000-150,000 and setting a new world auction record for the artist. Also noteworthy among the Modern & Contemporary Art was an untitled 1951 abstract by Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki (b. 1920) that achieved $386,500 against an estimate of $250,000-450,000. Table-Berceau premiere version, a bronze coffee table by Diego Giacometti (Swiss, 1902-1985) from the colllection of longtime MoMA board member Joanne Melniker Stern sold for $170,500, exceeding its estimate of $80,000-120,000. From the same collection was a pencil drawing of an interior by Alberto Giacometti (Swiss, 1901-1966) estimated at $25,000-35,000 that sold for a stunning $110,500.
Attracting the strongest interest in the European Art were works by Edouard Vuillard from the collection of longtime MoMA board member Joanne Melniker Stern. Fashionable Lady, Square des Batignolles, circa 1898, executed in distemper on cardboard, achieved $374,500, more than tripling its estimate of $80,000-120,000. A circa 1895 oil on paper titled The Black Belt estimated at $100,000-200,000 sold for a stunning $350,500.
All prices include the Buyer's Premium.
