Browse online catalogue for the Fine Furniture and Decorative Arts auction to be held May 1st and May 2nd at Noon both days.

Sotheby’s Geneva 17^th May sale of Magnificent Jewels & Noble Jewels is spearheaded by the most important emerald and diamond tiara to have appeared at auction in over 30 years and a superb fancy intense pink diamond weighing 10.99 carats.  The sale also comprises fine jewels of noble provenance, and an impressive array of white diamonds and colored gemstones including Kashmir sapphires and two important Burmese rubies.

In addition, there is a broad selection of period jewels, and creations signed by some of the world’s greatest jewelers; among them, 50 jewels by Cartier, nearly 40 creations by Van Cleef and Arpels, and a group of jewels by JAR.

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Click here to browse the full online catalogue for the Asian Works of Art auction to be held May 3rd at 10:00 am.

Free sports memorabilia appraisal day planned for June 4 in Baltimore

WESTHAMPTON, N.Y. – Officials at Grey Flannel Auctions announced today that they have entered into a three-year marketing and promotional deal with the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation Inc. The foundation is an independent, not-for-profit educational institution dedicated to perpetuating the historic legacy of Babe Ruth, Baltimore’s Orioles and Colts; and local and regional sports. It also operates the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.

As part of the new arrangement, Grey Flannel will conduct two annual events at the Sports Legends Museum, which is located adjacent to Baltimore’s Oriole Park and operated by the same management as the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum. The first of this year’s jointly sponsored events will be a free sports memorabilia appraisal fair held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 4, 2011, in the Sports Legends Museum’s theater.

Grey Flannel’s team of experts will be on hand to accept consignments to future auctions and to provide free appraisals on game-worn apparel, equipment, vintage collector cards, autographed items and any other professional sports memorabilia. Those who attend the appraisal fair will also be admitted free of charge to the Sports Legends Museum.

“It’s a great honor for us to be associated with the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation. Their exhibits and programs at the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum and Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards instill a very positive and lasting impression on youngsters, while at the same time honoring Baltimore’s titans of professional sports,” said Grey Flannel Auctions’ president, Richard E. Russek.

The appraisal fair will take place on the same day as an Orioles home game at Camden Yards (start time: 7:05 p.m.). “It’s a perfect way to spend the day – visiting the incredible Sports Legends Museum at no cost, meeting the Grey Flannel team at the free appraisal fair, then topping it off with an evening in Baltimore’s beautiful Oriole Park, watching the O’s play the Blue Jays,” Russek said.

Michael L. Gibbons, executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum and Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards, commented: “I have long been a fan of Grey Flannel Auctions’ operation, and to be able to host this event with them for the next three years is very exciting for all of us at the Sports Legends Museum. We think it fits nicely within our mission and look forward to it with great anticipation. It’s a win-win for both sides.”

Additional information about the appraisal fair will be available soon at www.greyflannelauctions.com and www.baberuthmuseum.com.

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art sale on the evening of May 10th provides rare opportunities for collectors seeking extraordinary masterworks from the mid-20th century through to the 21st century.

Iconic works by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons are the star offerings of the sale. The Pink Panther is the paramount work in Koons’ seminal and coveted Banality series and this exquisitely crafted porcelain sculpture is among the most important works of the late 20th century to come to auction. Pink Panther embodies Koons’ classic themes of popular culture and rarefied elitism, eroticism and naivety, all captured in luxuriant color and surface textures. This complex work is the artist’s proof for an edition of 3 with the other examples in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and a prominent American private collection. Sixteen Jackies is a testament to Warhol’s keen perception of the role of media in American popular culture, as captured in his selection of eight haunting images of President Kennedy’s wife in the week of his assassination in late 1963. In its full range of palette, grid format and image selection, this work is homage to the greatest of his multi-panel Jackies of 1964, The Week That Was. Warhol’s insight into the dissonance between the public and private face of celebrity, as well as the darkness underlying American prosperity, makes Sixteen Jackies a powerful memorial of the time.

Other notable works of Pop Art by Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann include major works from series such as Interiors, Bedroom Paintings and Great American Nude, while a more recent example of art rendered from popular culture and graphic sensibilities is Ed Ruscha’s Honey…I Twisted Through More Damned Traffic to Get Here from 1984. In counterpoint to these representational works are minimalist masterworks of color, form and shape, such as Concetto Spaziale (1965) by Lucio Fontana, Concorde Study (1955) by Ellsworth Kelly and Journey (1967) by Agnes Martin.

We are also thrilled to have superb works of more recent decades such as the sublimely beautiful “Untitled” (Aparición) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, the refined composition of Rhein I by Andreas Gursky and the richly enigmatic Shades by Mark Tansey. Eroica I by Jean-Michel Basquiat is both a summation of this great young talent and a presentiment of his tragic early death.

Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art sale on the evening of May 3 will be the main event of the Spring season for those collectors seeking exceptional works by the best-known artists of the 20th century.

The star lot of the evening will be Pablo Picasso’s sumptuous Femmes lisant (Deux personnages), one of the coveted “Marie-Thérèse” pictures from the 1930s. This important painting leads the strong selection of works by Picasso that span the artist’s career, from the dramatic Blue period in 1901, through his rigorous neo-Classical period and the fantastical Surrealist era, to the heroic works of his final years. Among these prized pictures are the compelling Surrealist icon Femme, a dynamic mid-century portrait of Paloma and a monumental depiction of lovers that dates from the artist’s late career, all from the collection great San Francisco patron of the arts, Dodie Rosekrans.

Phillips de Pury & Company’s Photographs Department is a leader in the field of classic and contemporary photography. Sales in New York and London show strong results across all genres of the medium, including works by 20th-century masters such as Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Horst P. Horst and Peter Beard, and works by contemporary stars such as Thomas Struth, Florian Maier-Aichen, Desiree Dolron, John Baldessari, Robert Polidori and Edward Burtynsky.

The Robert Rubin Collection of African Art is one of the most important collections of African art to appear on the international market in recent years.  Mr. Rubin (1934-2009) was a lifetime trustee of the Museum for African Art in New York and a major figure in the field.  The relatively small collection of 50 works reflects his extraordinary taste and discernment and his quest for the finest examples from each region and style.

Among the many highlights is a Baule Male Ancestor Figure from Ivory Coast, which is known as the best of its type.  It was created by a master carver whose attention to detail is unsurpassed in African art.  The unusually large (24in) sculpture is of exceptionally high quality.  It boasts impressive provenance and has also been widely published, including in the prestigious L’Art Negre by Pierre Meauze in 1967.  Another major highlight from the sale is a Dogon Nduleri Male Ancestor Figure which is the Name-Piece of the Master of the Slanted Eyes and the companion to a female figure in the collection of the Musee du Louvre in Paris.

Brose catalogue for the Robert Rubin Collection of African Art

The May auction of African, Oceanic, and Pre-Columbian Art at Sotheby’s offers a rich selection of exceptional art from the traditional cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands and Indonesia, as well as Central and South America.

The sale features a strong selection of African art, including an important Punu Mask from Gabon which was published in Carl Einstein’s influential 1915 book Negerplastik.  A magnificent Yoruba Female Figure of a woman offering a ram leads a group of West African art from the collection of Nancy and Richard Bloch.  A rare and important Luba-Songye Kifwebe Mask is of the type that probably inspired one of Pablo Picasso’s most dynamic periods, 1907-1908, when he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

Browse catalogue for the African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art auction

Browse the catalogue for the 19th/20th C. American & European Art auction

Browse the catalogue for the Post-War & Contemporary Art auction

Sotheby’s sales of Old Master Paintings include masterpieces from the 14th to the early 19th centuries by many of the greatest names in Western art. From Guido Reni to Vermeer, El Greco to Rubens, Frans Hals to Canaletto, Cranach to J.M.W. Turner, Sotheby’s has consistently led the market in this dynamic and diverse collecting category.

Britain has produced some of the world’s greatest painters and has attracted some of the greatest to its shores. The British Department covers a wide range of paintings and watercolours, including portraits from the age of Holbein to the age of Lawrence. We hold the auction record for many of the top names in British portraiture, including Constable, Lely, Wright of Derby, Romney, Zoffany, Gainsborough and Reynolds. The Department covers landscapes from the first foreign visitors such as Siberechts, and onwards to the age of Constable, Turner and Bonington. Our catalogues are always strong with marine paintings from the age of Van de Velde to Carmichael, and sporting art from Wootton, Seymour, and Stubbs, to Ferneley and Herring.