The art market went bananas over a million-dollar banana.
“Comedian,” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, sold for $6.2 million at auction Wednesday night.
The piece consists of an ordinary, yellow banana affixed to a white wall with a diagonal piece of silver duct tape. Since Cattelan debuted the work at Art Basel Miami Beach five years ago, what’s become known as the Banana has turned into a viral sensation. It’s attracted crowds, copycats, and even its own cryptocurrency.
The Banana also is reigniting a long-running debate about the value society is willing to place on an everyday object simply because an artist calls it art. (Marcel Duchamp famously kick-started the argument in 1913 when he mounted a bicycle wheel to a stool.)
Perrotin Gallery originally sold Cattelan’s duct-taped banana in an edition of three plus two artist’s proofs, or early prototypes—so five bananas in all—for between $120,000 and $150,000 apiece in 2019. On Wednesday, Sotheby’s in New York estimated its example from this bunch would sell for at least $1 million, but at least seven bidders chased it far higher.
Ultimately it sold to Chinese collector Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron. He intends to pay for the piece in crypto. After the sale, Sun said he considered the piece to be historic, but he also said he has plans of his own for the Banana: “In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”
Cattelan, 64, splits his time between Milan and New York and has acted as the art world’s court jester since the 1990s. He is known for creating impish, realistic sculptures that satirize powerful and wealthy institutions including politicians and the Catholic Church. …
To keep a work made of a real banana intact, the artist enlists the work’s owner—who receives a 14-page sheet of instructions that doubles as a certificate of authenticity—to continually refresh the installation by buying their own supply of new bananas and tape. One stipulation is that the banana’s curve should point right, not left. The fruit should also be displayed vertically, not horizontally like a smile, and roughly at eye level.
If someone visiting Sotheby’s preview had tried to rip the Banana off the wall and eat it like artist David Datuna did at one point during its Miami fair debut, Sotheby’s was prepared. Expert David Galperin said, “We have backups.”
Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal, titled “Fountain.” to a New York art exhibition in 1917, 107 years ago. You would think this kind of nihilistic gesture would have gotten old by now.
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“Charles,” said Cordelia, “Modern Art is all bosh, isn’t it.”
“Great bosh.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. I had an argument with one of our nuns and she said we shouldn’t try to criticize what we didn’t understand. Now I shall tell her I have had it straight from a real artist, and snubs to her.”
A wrecked and long-forgotten 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider made headlines when it was auctioned for nearly $2 million at RM Sotheby’s Monterey Car Week. This Ferrari, chassis number 0406MD, was one of only 13 Pinin Farina-bodied Spiders ever built, adding significant rarity and historical value to the lot despite its battered state. Originally designed for privateer racing, the car boasted Ferrari’s then-new 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine and had been driven by renowned drivers like Franco Cortese. Over time, the car suffered multiple crashes on the racetrack, leaving it in a damaged condition that sidelined it for decades.
In 1978, the Mondial Spider was acquired by U.S. collector Walter Medlin, who stored it in its wrecked state for 45 years. Its rediscovery and subsequent auction shocked the classic car world, as its crumpled frame and charred body didn’t diminish its appeal to collectors. The Mondial Spider’s provenance—being one of the early cars built for Ferrari’s racing program—and its extreme rarity made it a prime candidate for restoration. Auction experts noted the car’s potential to be restored to its former glory, estimating that while the restoration process could cost millions, the car’s value upon completion could far exceed that.
The restoration would be extensive, but the reward might be worth it. The current iteration of the Mille Miglia has stringent entry requirements. The Italian historic event only allows vehicles confirmed to have participated during the race’s competitive open-road heyday. Yes, the actual cars that were raced in Italy between 1927 and 1957. This research work has already been done to confirm that this Ferrari 500 Mondial is the same vehicle from 1954.
The New Yorker recounts the complicated history of a preposterously valuable timepiece.
[S]ometime around 2007, in the early days of social media, a new kind of watch obsessive materialized, equipped with native computer skills and an appreciation for the places where pop culture and the luxury market intersect. In those pre-Instagram years, fanboy wonks traded watch esoterica online: an image of Picasso wearing a lost Jaeger-LeCoultre; Castro with two trendy Rolexes strapped to one arm; Brando, on the set of “Apocalypse Now,” “flexing,” as watch geeks say, a Rolex GMT-Master without its timing bezel, a modification he made to better inhabit the role of Kurtz; and—the Google image-search find of them all—two frames of an uncredited snapshot of Lennon and his Patek.
“I’m not a watch guy,” Sean Lennon said. “I’d be terrified to wear anything of my dad’s. I never even played one of his guitars.”
Since its discovery, around 2011, the image has appeared online again and again, fuelling a speculative frenzy about what the watch—which cost around twenty-five thousand dollars at Tiffany in 1980—might bring at auction today, with estimates ranging from ten million to forty million dollars. (Bloomberg’s Subdial Watch Index tracks the value of a bundle of watches produced by Rolex, Patek, and Audemars Piguet, like an E.T.F.; the Boston Consulting Group reported that, between 2018 and 2023, a similar selection outperformed the S. & P. 500 by twelve per cent. In 2017, Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona broke records by selling at auction for $17.8 million.) But all the clickbait posts about the Lennon Patek, as it had come to be known, were regurgitations that contained few facts. There was never a mention of who took the photo, where it was taken, or even where the watch might be.
During the long, dull days of the pandemic, I decided to see what I could find out. Several years went by, as I traced the journey of the watch from where it was stowed after Lennon’s death—a locked room in his Dakota apartment—to when it was stolen, apparently in 2005. From there, it moved around Europe and the watch departments of two auction houses, before becoming the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, in Switzerland, to determine whether the watch’s rightful owner is Ono or an unnamed man a Swiss court judgment refers to as Mr. A, who claims to have bought the watch legally in 2014.
Having reached its final appeal—Ono has so far prevailed—the case is now in the hands of the Tribunal Fédéral, Switzerland’s Supreme Court, which is expected to render a verdict later this year. Meanwhile, the watch continues to sit in an undisclosed location in Geneva, a city that specializes in the safe, secret storage of lost treasures.
Safavid red-ground ‘Palmette and Bird’ carpet, circa 1565-75
Christie’s Auction 21892 London 26 – 25 OCT
Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Rugs and Carpets, Lot 150:
A SAFAVID RED-GROUND ‘PALMETTE AND BIRD’ CARPET
POSSIBLY QAZVIN, NORTH PERSIA, CIRCA 1565-1575
Wool pile on a silk and cotton foundation, lacking outer stripe, areas of negligible wear, localised reweaves and restoration, sides rebound, an additional tape applied on all four sides
16ft.9in. x 7ft.3in. (517cm. x 225cm.)
PROVENANCE
Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), Paris
With Colnaghi Oriental, London, circa 1975
With The Textile Gallery and Elio Cittone, Milan
Roberto Calvi, Milan
Canadian Collector, sold Christie’s London, 17 October 1996, lot 404
Private Collector, sold Sotheby’s New York, 20 September 2001, lot 221
Gordon P. Getty, sold Sotheby’s New York, 1 February 2013, lot 22, from where purchased by the present owner
The Omega Watch Company Museum paid $3.4 million USD at auction for a rare example of one of its own brand watches that has recently been proven to be a fake. link
The 1957 OMEGA Speedmaster that sold at Phillips for a record-breaking USD$3.4 million (AUD$4.6 million at the time) has been revealed as a fake. The immaculate Ref. 2915-1, which was described as the Swiss maison’s “most historically important model” first made headlines in 2021, when it appeared in the lineup for Phillips’ Geneva Watch Auction: XIV. Seen as the holy grail of Speedmasters and a design often thought lost to the world, the model drew the interest of many avid collectors, each clambering to hold a piece of history in their hands. Less than two years later and a string of reports have revealed the most expensive OMEGA ever sold, was simply too good to be true.
But that’s just the beginning.
Bloomberg is reporting that the 1957 OMEGA Speedmaster Ref. 2915-1 is not an original example, but rather a piece constructed using parts from other vintage watches. According to Sydney-based registered watch and jewellery valuer Damien Kalmar, the end result of this process is referred to as a ‘Frankenwatch’, a term used within the industry to demonstrate the lengths and sophistication of the forgery. While not uncommon, these pieces generally take the form of a vintage Seiko or OMEGA Seamaster, due to the ubiquitous and collectible nature of the design.
“Copy (or fake) watches have been around for a very long time, and forgers have been making copies of OMEGA watches for decades,” the Kalmar Antiques director tells us. “Whether they are models produced post-1969 dubbed ‘moon watches’ after Buzz Aldrin famously wore one on the landing of the moon, or the ‘pre-moon watches’ dating prior – Speedmasters have always been highly collectable watches and remain popular in the current market.”
So, with that knowledge on hand, the question begs to be asked, how did a watch that was supposedly OMEGA’s “most historically important model” manage to slip through the cracks?
According to the brand, the very expensive mixup was an inside job. In the Bloomberg report, OMEGA claims that three former employees were behind a very intricate scheme to dupe collectors, auctioneers and the brand itself. Considering the actualised price was around 25 times the pre-sale estimate, they were damn close to pulling it off.
As per OMEGA’s allegations, a former employee of its museum and brand heritage department “worked in tandem with intermediaries to purchase the watch for the OMEGA Museum”. On the advice of this employee, OMEGA purchased the watch for its in-house collection with company executives reportedly told that it was a “rare and exceptional timepiece that would be an absolute must”.
As we reported back in November 2021, the 1957 model represented the perfect culmination of time periods and design language. Only in production between 1957 and 1959, the Ref. 2915-1 and -2 models received the ‘Broad Arrow’ minute and hour hands, alongside a metal bezel – as opposed to the standard bezel with black insert. Additionally, the rare piece was said to sport slightly different dial graphics, distinguishable by the oval O of OMEGA, which later became perfectly round.
“In terms of design, it was the first chronograph to feature a tachymeter scale (or, as OMEGA called it at the time, the Tacho-productometer scale) on the bezel, rather than on the dial,” Phillips wrote at the time. “In terms of movements, OMEGA did not go for a brand new calibre, turning instead to calibre 321, an extremely robust and reliable column-wheel chronograph, which it recognised as the best available option for its new Speedmaster.”
Alas, it was not meant to be. OMEGA has not named the ex-staffers it claims were responsible for the con, however, CEO Raynald Aeschlimann told Swiss newspaper NZZ that the deception had been “to the massive detriment of OMEGA”. Even more bizarrely, the watchmaker apparently doesn’t know who consigned the watch to Phillips for the auction, making the entire ordeal all the more strange. A Phillips Spokesperson confirmed that the auction house obtained confirmation from OMEGA of the date of manufacture of the numbered movement, serial number, the model of watch that the movement was fitted to and the date it was sold
“Until last week, nobody had ever suggested this OMEGA watch was not authentic, the watch was inspected by specialists, experts and even the manufacturer at the time of the sale and nobody raised any concerns over it,” the Spokesperson told Man of Many. “Even now, we have not seen any reports or had access to the watch to carry out an in-depth analysis of the watch regarding those claims.”
“We understand representatives of OMEGA saw the watch before they purchased it. We believe OMEGA is bringing criminal charges against the perpetrators.”
Steve McQueen’s 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 by Scaglietti.
At Sotheby’s, Monterey, 18 – 19 August 2023, the Ferrari 275 GTB/4 once owned by the King of Cool. The front-engined grand tourer is expected to fetch serious money due to its provenance. Under the long and shapely hood of the Scaglietti-design is a 3.3-liter Colombo V12 engine good for 300 horsepower. It’s a rather unique car, having been repainted in stunning Chianti Red (over the original gold paint) and then fitted with the wheels and wing mirror from his convertible Ferrari 275 GTB/4 that he had crashed. This very car was restored to perfection by Ferrari Classiche between 2010 and 2013. It sold for $10 million at RM Sotheby’s flagship Monterey sale back in August 2014, and it should fetch an even larger sum when it hits the auction block again this August.
The 1896 Mauser “Broomhandle” semi-automatic pistol fired an 86 grain bullet (a lot like today’s 90 grain 9mm Parabellums) at a much zippier 1450 fps (like a .357 magnum, just a smaller bullet). The magazine held ten rounds, and it was the most powerful handgun in the world right up until the late 1930s when the.357 Magnum came along.
Winston Churchill carried one when he charged with the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, and it saved his bacon.
I have one, of less distinguished pedigree, myself. It’s a really neat, historical, and quite accurate gun, and plenty powerful. When you shoot it, it belches fire out the muzzle and the breech!
Back when I still lived in Connecticut, I was in the habit of test firing guns a bit in my basement. There was a second room under the north wing of the house, and against an old porch pillar standing in support I would prop up a series of 2x4s and other scrap boards with lots of layers, ink in a bullseye, and then fire into the target through the doorway from the outer basement room.
When I first fired my Broomhandle, the bullet penetrated straight through six layers of boards ricocheted off the concrete walls of the far room three times and then exited through a basement window. I was impressed, and felt really stupid and really lucky, though I did have to go and replace that glass!
Cool as my Broomhandle is, the scoped model coming up for auction soon is decidedly cooler. Unfortunately, it apparently falls into the “All the Tea in China” range of collectable value. I still enjoyed looking at the auction listing.
SCOPE & STOCK. Cal. 7.63mm. S# 834001. Seldom does one come across a truly unique special order firearm. This incredible ensemble was reportedly made in 1931 and based on a 1930 Commercial pistol. The frame was dimensionally changed, thickened in the upper portion of the right side to provide a flat surface for a scope base upon which could be mounted an OIGEE scope. The scoped pistol, attached to a standard 1930 Commercial stock, presenting an extraordinarily ensemble that may have been used as a basis for the Hollywood Han Solo blaster. This exact ensemble was sold at a major auction house in the U.S., many years ago, for over $50,000, and was profiled in great detail in the German language C96 book “GESCHICHTE & MODELLE 1923-1945, Vol 4″ on pages 135-137″. The project started using a standard M1930 Commercial having a 5.5″ bbl. w/ fixed front sight & slip-in rear sight graduated 50-1000. Short extractor, 2-lug firing pin, universal safety & sm. ring hammer. Usual Mauser address on top of chamber, Crown/”C”/”U” proof on left chamber flat. Full S# on left side of bbl. extension, disassembly showing a matching frame & an unnumbered locking block & floorplate. The special order work was largely directed to the right side of the frame where the upper portion was machined flat. A scope base was attached using 2 lg. diameter pins, then welded in place, its surface having 2 channels for the cammed levers of the mount. The mount slipped over the base & was secured by turning the levers, just as used to attach a Luger stock to its corresponding lug. Sturdy rings were used to secure an OIGEE scope, the manufacturer active from 1910-1960, marked “OIGEE/BERLIN” in 2 locations, with a magnification of 2.5x & marked “6134” under adjustment knobs. “5588” marked on top of scope, arguably representing the model. Presenting reticle is a central pointed post bracketed by 2 equally thick horizontal bars. The attaching stock is from a standard production 1930 Commercial, this one having an unmarked lug w/ squared shoulders. UNATTACHED ACCESSORIES: scope w/ attached mount & 1930 Commercial shoulder stock. CONDITION: near excellent original salt blue as applied by Mauser to their 1930 Commercial pistols w/ a tempering line just behind the chamber & another at the upper rear of the frame. Sharp edge & handling wear as one might expect from a pistol that has seen light use w/ no evidence of touch up. Bright bore w/sharp rifling. Perfect manual mechanics. Scope & mount, each w/ original finish, are in the same condition w/ scope having bright, crisp optics. Excellent shoulder stock w/a light scattering of handling dings, comparable condition hinge, lug w/ fading over its upper arm. An absolutely stunning special order ensemble. Yes, you could own the Hollywood blaster, but wouldn’t you rather have the real thing? (22-3153/LMA). CURIO. $35,000-65,000.
Utagawa Hiroshige II, Night Rain at Akasaka Kiribatake (Akasaka Kiribatake uchû yûkei), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei): 1859.
On the night artist Anna Weyant’s work debuted at Christie’s, the 27-year-old painter was too nervous to attend or even watch the livestream. Instead, Ms. Weyant holed up in her small Manhattan apartment and listened to a calming app on her cellphone until a friend texted with news.
“Summertime,” Ms. Weyant’s portrait of a woman with long, flowing hair that the artist had sold for around $12,000 two years before, resold for $1.5 million, five times its high estimate.
It has been a rocket-fueled rise to the top of the contemporary art world for Ms. Weyant—and far from her unassuming start in Calgary, Canada. Spotted on Instagram three years ago and quickly vouched for by a savvy handful of artists, dealers and advisers, Ms. Weyant is now internationally coveted for her paintings of vulnerable girls and mischievous women in sharply lit, old-master hues. Imagine Botticelli as a millennial, whose porcelain-skin beauties also pop one leg high like the Victoria Beckham meme or sport gold necklaces that read, “Ride or Die.”
Ms. Weyant’s oeuvre of roughly 50 paintings has already filtered into the hands of top collectors such as investor Glenn Fuhrman and plastic surgeon Stafford Broumand. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently exhibited her work in a group show, and former Venice Biennale curator Francesco Bonami said he predicts she will make her own Biennale appearance soon, which would be another career milestone.
As is, demand for her art outstrips her supply: The waiting list to buy one of her paintings, dealers say, is at least 200 names long. And last month she teamed up with the biggest art gallery of them all, Gagosian. … Read the rest of this entry »
Two locks of hair, one blond, one brown, allegedly from the head of Emily Dickinson are being offered for sale on Ebay for $450,000.
Were they stolen decades ago from The Evergreens by the poet James Merrill? See LithHub.
[A] bit of questionably obtained Dickinson memorabilia has been quietly traded among a group of literary men for years: locks alleged to be the poet’s hair (some of which are now for sale on eBay for the astronomical sum of $450,000).
How the poet—who chose to cloister her living body from all but a few visitors—would feel about pieces of it making the rounds is anybody’s guess. The dead cannot give consent. But the alleged Dickinson hair may have arrived on the market by a type of violation: theft. That’s the theory of Mark Gallagher, the English faculty member at UCLA who’s trying to sell the hair on eBay.
The story goes like this: While an undergraduate at Amherst College in the 1940s, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Merrill broke into the home (aka The Evergreens) of Dickinson’s niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Merrill and two friends absconded with personal effects, including a small mirror, “tiny wine glass,” and a manuscript sheet—written by whom, it is unclear. The caper was recounted by Stephen Yenser in a 1995 issue of Poetry magazine dedicated to Merrill, who had died earlier that year. Yenser, Merrill’s literary executor and the now-retired founder of UCLA’s creative writing program, said he heard the tale from Merrill himself. In Poetry, he euphemized what was essentially burglary with terms like “borrowed” and “rescued,” writing that the trio “gained clandestine entry.”
The anecdote has been whispered among Dickinson scholars for years, according to University of Maryland English Prof. Martha Nell Smith, one of the nation’s foremost experts on Dickinson.
“I’ve long been convinced James Merrill did wander off with (steal?) some Dickinson items from the Evergreens, Martha Dickinson Bianchi’s home,” Smith wrote in an email.
Gallagher believes that Merrill must have also taken the hair during the alleged break-in at The Evergreens. Gallagher got his hands on the hair by way of the poet J.D. McClatchy, who, until his death in 2018, shared Merrill’s literary executorship with Yenser. McClatchy’s estate sale, where Gallagher purchased the hair, listed Merrill as the original owner.
Yenser, for his part, denies any nefarious origin for the locks. He says the hair came from an envelope found inside an 1890 edition of Poems by Emily Dickinson that belonged to Merrill, likely purchased from a rare book dealer.
Yet the envelope was labeled in cursive “For Mrs. Dickinson,” and the book in which it was found includes notes from Susan Gilbert Dickinson, according to Yale University, which now holds the volume and provided photos of the artifacts (below). Susan was Martha’s mother, and she and her husband Austin, Emily’s brother, lived at The Evergreens until their respective deaths in 1895 and 1913. Their daughter Martha then moved into the property and “preserved it without change, until her own death in 1943,” according to the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, which controls The Evergreens. As far as Gallagher is concerned it’s quite possible Merrill took the book when he broke into the property.
Sotheby’s will shortly be auctioning a really remarkable collection of the earliest hard-paste porcelain made in Europe, by the Meissen factory in Saxony created by Augustus the Strong.
