Hypersonic

Record $85m for a Monet

ONE of Claude Monet's large waterlily paintings yesterday sold for a world record pound stg. 41 million ($84.4 million), heralding a week of London art sales that could raise more than pound stg. 500 million in defiance of the global economic downturn.

An anonymous buyer bought Le Bassin aux Nympheas for what was a record price for the artist at auction and a record for a painting sold at auction in Europe. The auction house, Christie's, had estimated that it would fetch pound stg. 24 million.

Le Bassin aux Nympheas was part of a four-work collection of waterlily paintings that Monet put up for sale during his lifetime. He saw the oil paintings of his water garden as a work in progress, and rarely sold them.
The four large-scale paintings of Monet's waterlily garden were signed and dated by the artist in 1919. One of the other paintings is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while another was sold at auction in 1992 for $US12.1 million and is in a private collection. The final painting in the series was cut into two before World War II.

The 1m by 2m painting sold yesterday was bought in a 1971 New York auction for $US320,000 and has not been publicly exhibited since.
The bold brushstrokes in the painting are characteristic of Monet's later works, especially his Grandes decorations, a 22-panel work of waterlily paintings that was installed in Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris five months after his death in 1926.

Monet created his water garden in Giverny, France, by rerouting a river. He selected different hybrids of waterlilies in an effort to get as many different coloured flowers as possible, deliberately creating the garden as a motif for his paintings.

The previous record for a Monet work was set last month at Christie's in New York. The 1873 painting Le Pont du chemin de fer Argenteuil sold for $US41 million ($42.8 million).

Yesterday's auction also featured a rare pastel work by French impressionist Edgar Degas showing two ballet dancers that sold for nearly pound stg. 13.5 million.

The auction kicked off a week of major modern art sales at Christie's and its rival Sotheby's, as the international market continues to set records despite global economic troubles.
AP, The Times

Curb Zone

 

Hypersonic

Credit crunch: why the Super Rich are different

As a Monet goes for £40m, Jessica Fellowes explains why the uber wealthy are spending their way through the credit crunch

"Take as much time as you like," said the Christie's auctioneer, to one of the bidders for Claude Monet's Le Bassin aux Nympheas on Tuesday night. The three-way battle for the painting, between two telephone buyers and a woman at the front of the room, was becoming increasingly fierce.

The bids had been going up in £500,000 leaps but the auctioneer only finally brought down the gavel when the price had reached £40.1 million. A new record for a Monet - and yet amazingly it was only last month that another Monet record of £21.5 million was set.

The sale demonstrates a strange dichotomy. The credit crunch is all around us: food riots, rocketing fuel prices and sinking house values are deepening the gloom. But one group of people are sailing through without a care in their bulging leather wallets: the Super Rich.

There are just two economies now: the Super Rich and Everyone Else. Everyone Else can only hope that the best things in life are free, but the Super Rich know that they can just put them on their American Express Black Card.

To borrow a phrase (I can't afford to buy anything these days): if you don't think money can buy you everything, you just don't know where to shop. I took a look at a typical Super Rich shopping list, and found superjets for $55 million [£27million], apartments for £36 million, a diamond ring for £3 million, and even a £225 cocktail.

The luxury goods market alone is set to see a 10 per cent growth this year. Last week, Mulberry reported an impressive set of preliminary results showing revenues up 14 per cent and total UK sales up 29 per cent.

This followed Burberry's figures, which showed a 25 per cent leap in profit [in the last tax year], with sales of accessories rising by 39 per cent alone, generating almost a third of its entire revenue. Hardly surprising when one considers the fact that there is a growing waiting list for its Warrior handbag - a steal at a mere £11,000.

Upmarket accessories brand Bottega Veneta, owned by Gucci, has also seen a 32 per cent sales increase, probably helped by stores opening in Vilnius, the Ukraine, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, Dubai and Mumbai in the last year alone.

A wise move: while there's little doubt that the Super Rich still love shopping and partying in Britain, less than half are home grown. There are 75 billionaires living here (according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008) - but 40 of those originate from Israel, Russia and India.

According to Forbes magazine, there are now 1,125 billionaires worldwide, with 87 of them living in Russia (thanks to oil prices continuing to pump up the country's economy, combined with the fairly recent privatisation of formerly government-owned resources, Russians are currently dominating the billionaire stakes). Of course, those are only the ones that Forbes knows about. One source told me that he had remarked to a friend: "I see you're not on the Forbes list any more." "No, and I'm very happy about it," the Super Rich man replied. "It took some arranging, but I managed to get out of it."

So discreet are the Super Rich that they don't travel with Everyone Else. Instead they call Justine Angelli, CEO and founder of Avolus, based in London's Battersea heliport. In operation since September 2005, the company originally started as a limousine service but quickly found it was getting more calls for jets than limos.

"Now we charter four types of luxury transportation - cars, helicopters, jets and yachts - the only company to do so," says Angelli. "We've done three times as well in the first quarter of this year as we did last year.

When we sold our first flight for £6,000, I thought it was a miracle. Back then, I thought someone with a disposable income of a quarter of a million was doing well. Now, I probably won't do business with you unless you have over a billion."

One client demanded that three kilos of vegetables were picked up and flown to London: "the potatoes from Russia, the tomatoes from Georgia, lettuce from somewhere else…" recalls Angelli. "We had to clear it all through customs, which in itself was almost impossible, for it to reach the restaurant where our client had it all cooked for his supper."

Ten per cent of Avolus's business is in flying pets, as clients don't want their furry friends to go in the hold. "One even thought it was unfair for her dog to have to pee on board. As it was a transatlantic flight, we had to stop in Canada for the dog to do its business. That cost £50,000."

Some of the Super Rich prefer to buy their own private jets. The most coveted at the moment is the Challenger 850 at $55 million [£27 million]. But demand is greater than supply, and if you order now you won't get one until 2011.

Angelli has also had 17 enquiries recently for the G450 - a bargain at just $42 million [£21 million].

"The Russians always want the biggest and the best and it constantly pushes the market forward," she explains. She doesn't expect business to let up any time soon. "If anyone has to downsize, the private jet is always the last thing they want to give up."

But there don't seem to be any cutbacks among the Super Rich, anyway. The art and antique market has held strong in the current climate and foreign investors are especially keen to buy in London while the pound is strong against the dollar.

Roman Abramovich's girlfriend, Daria Zhukova, is establishing herself as a serious gallery owner and Abramovich himself spent £60 million on two paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud last month. In fact, Russians accounted for nearly 40 per cent of Impressionist sales last year.

If art is holding steady, the jewellery market is even firmer. Why else would Chopard choose Tuesday this week - bang in the middle of the credit crunch - to launch London's most expensive cocktail at the Westbury Hotel?

At £225 a glass, the Chopardissimo - a vodka martini with Beluga caviar, accompanied by a rosewater and mint jelly plus green tea sorbet - was served up to just a hundred or so of the company's closest friends.

Denis Bellessort, director of the exclusive jewellers, is in a good mood. "Right now is the best time ever for exceptional pieces," he says. "The mid-market range has almost dried up" - that'll be Everyone Else then - "but pieces between £1 million and £20 million have never sold better."

But you will rarely see these pieces on display. Denis says the Super Rich are Super Discreet, and this is even reflected in the stones they choose. The cushion-cut diamond is sought after for its soft, internally reflected light. A salmon pink one sold recently to a Middle Eastern client for just over £3 million.

Jennifer "from the Block" Lopez might covet yellow diamonds - her husband presented her with a $300,000 eight-carat yellow canary diamond ring after the birth of twins - but Denis says they are merely "the start of the super range".

Meanwhile the jewellers of Bond St have been revving up for one of their busiest seasons. It kicked off with the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair earlier this month and there were also rich pickings at London Jewellery Week, where the Japanese designer Ginza Tanaka showed off a £1million handbag.

It was barely big enough to hold a lipstick or credit card, but then if you can afford an accessory made entirely of platinum and diamonds, you probably don't need to carry a credit card.

The big American and Russian buyers of stones and "pieces" visit Britain round about now, as they can combine their shopping trip with visits to Royal Ascot, Wimbledon, Goodwood Festival of Speed and, of course, Elton John's White Tie & Tiara Ball tonight. (Middle Eastern and Asian clients tend to come shopping later in September, once they've dropped their children off at boarding schools.)

All these regular trips to Britain mean that the Super Rich want a base in the capital. Not all have quite the budget of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who this week splashed out £70 million for his third house in London's Kensington Park Gardens.

But they are still looking firmly in the seven- to eight-figure brackets. Jeremy McGivern, MD and founder of Mercury Homesearch, finds properties for his clients, frequently at £4 to £5 million - "These might just be a pied-à-terre in the city, or something for their children" - or up to £9 million plus.

While mortgage lenders are pulling their offers, McGivern is as busy as ever: many of his clients are cash buyers. "What I would call 'best-of-breed' properties are still selling for the asking price, even going to sealed bids," he says.

Such houses come with all the gizmos you can think of - and several you couldn't: panic rooms, climate-controlled wine cellars for at least 1,000 bottles, remote-control curtains, gym, bespoke joinery ("by a modern-day Chippendale") and underground parking for several cars - including a car lift that automatically selects the car of your choice and brings it to ground level.

Still not impressed? McGivern was recently challenged to find an apartment for a client who wanted 6,000 sq ft on one floor, for a budget of £36 million (he succeeded).

Not that the Super Rich need to try to impress. One Russian oligarch I met at a private house party at Stapleford Park is the owner of a bank.

He was there with his very beautiful girlfriend for a car rally laid on for the guests (she was deliciously tricked out in Chanel driving gloves, despite staying in the passenger seat for the entire duration). Both were charming and polite.

At one point, he asked me if a 1932 Rolls Royce that was on the rally was expensive.

"Very expensive!" I said. "Maybe £100,000!" He nodded and walked off.

Later I learnt he had just put in an order for a Challenger 850 - £27 million, remember. But then he is Super Rich, and I, sadly, am Everyone Else.

- ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Centurion

I studied Monet at university in California. His waterlily paintings are well renowned and since he's one of the biggest painters ever to live any of his paintings would naturally sell for a staggering sum of money. They can be considered as investments too since they'll sell for more money as time goes on.

Interesting article, like I said a couple of months back, the super rich are in general immune against recession.

Bruce

Insane (in a good way).

My favourite Monet is still "Saint-Georges Majeur au crépuscule"

Hypersonic

They are very beautiul paintings.

I very much appreciate that you guys have respectfully separated 'the art' from 'the art market'

I sometimes wonder if the buyers who pay so much for important paintings and sculptures are true art lovers or simply investors ....or even buying these things for ego reasons ....who knows


__________________________________________________ ____________




Slightly OT ...but still on matters of high prices and beautiful things.

These magnificent chairs were sold at Christie's just over a week ago. They were made in 1764 and are designed by Robert Adam (one of Britain's greatest designers of the 18th century).

God I want them

Bruce

Definitely.

Very true. I know that If I bought them it'd be for reasons of admiration rather than investment.

The Artist

Insane in the mid brain..

Centurion

Those buying art for outrages prices are collectors............of ultra expensive art only. They could careless about art galleries exhibiting art from up and coming artists. Besides that they tend to be sitting on excess money and having already invested money in various properties they turn their heads to art. Their perception of art is quite childish, the more expensive the more beautiful and better. It's an ego thing as well, battling out with other wealthy giants in an auction hall.

Much of the recent crass consumption in the art world is a result of bandwagon and media hype. The more an art piece is hyped up and the more billionaires hear about it, the higher it will sell for. Selling art pieces through auction sadly encourages people to over bid, like Abrahamovich did when he forked over £17 000 000 for Lucian Freud's painting. Not in a million years will anyone want to buy it off him for more than that. That is unless they are blinded by the owner's fame and the paintings headlines.

Hypersonic

^ You are right Hassan. I have recently seen limited edition design-objects sell at auction for three times what you can buy them new from a commercial gallery.

The excellent Italian manufacturer Sawaya & Moroni make this "iceberg" sofa by Zaha Hadid, I'm not sure what it would cost from a retailer ...but one sold at auction a few weeks ago for $129,000
- ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Contemporary high design has only quite recently emerged as a 'big money' market.

- ONLY REGISTERED AND ACTIVATED USERS CAN SEE ALL LINKS - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER have established themselves as the premier auction house for contemporary design.

Centurion

In the latest issue of Elle decor there is a very interesting feature in which they criticize the new era of over-priced art. A prime example of what they were talking about is that sofa right there, it's a design piece which caries zero usability at all and is sold off at a staggering price to people who'll use it for only go knows what.

These days any top designer can make some very quick money creating a batch of 5 items and selling them off at an auction. Another point worth mentioning is art is always in the eyes of the beholder and lately many design pieces are deliberately created to look like art and attract people with deep pocket. Quite superfluous just like the Phantom DHC developed from the ground up to be as extravagant as a car be. You should buy the issue and read the feature, some very valid points are made.

Curb Zone