Christie's Online Magazine No.226

From: Christie's - Saturday Jun 20, 2020 10:29 am

Christie’s

Art stories to feed the mind and soul

‘The beginning of my present life’ — Barnett Newman and the series that signalled his rebirth

‘I bought wine like crazy’: how Ben Ichinose built one of the greatest cellars in the world

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A rare token of love: who was the woman who moved Zhang Daqian to paint this silk dress?

Calder, the cartoonist, and a work of art inspired by three decades of friendship

Why 8 million people, their parents, siblings and friends, are grateful to this man’s genius

How do you appraise the houses of Yves Saint Laurent, Elizabeth Taylor or the Rockefellers?

More stories

Editor’s picks

This is the first diamond ring ever to be offered in an online auction with a low estimate of $1 million. The emerald-cut diamond weighs 28.86 carats, and is mounted in platinum. The accompanying report states that the gem is D colour, VVS1 clarity, and Type IIa

Estimate: $1,000,000-2,000,000
until 30 June, Online

Emil Nolde viewed the blooming and fading away of flowers as emblematic of the transience of all life. ‘Our human destiny is not always as consequent or beautiful,’ the artist observed. He is thought to have painted this watercolour, Dahlien (gelb un violett) in blauer Vase, between 1930 and 1935

Estimate: £40,000-60,000
until 1 July, Online

This 13th-century turquoise tile with kufic script is in the form of a mihrab, the recess in mosques that indicates the direction of Mecca. At its centre is a lamp that recalls the Verse of Light on actual mosque lamps: ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth; the likeness of His light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp’

Estimate: £20,000-30,000
25 June, London

Under the Qing emperor Xianfeng, the delicate apricot colour of this silk dragon robe was restricted to the emperor’s secondary consorts and the wives of his brothers. It’s thought the robe was worn by the Empress Dowager Cixi in 1856, when she moved up to fourth rank following the birth of Xianfeng’s only son

Estimate: €40,000-60,000
23 June, Paris

Barnett Newman, Onement V, 1952. Estimate: $30,000,000-40,000,000. Offered in the ONE sale at Christie’s New York on 10 July. Artwork: © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / DACS, London 2020. Barnett Newman, photographed in New York in 1957. Photo: © Burt Glinn / Magnum Photos. Artwork: © The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York / DACS, London 2020 // Alexander Calder and Robert Osborn with Sumac, 1955, photographed at Osborn’s home in Salisbury, Connecticut (detail). Artwork: © 2020 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York // Professor Robert Edwards in 1965. Photo: Bourn Hall Clinic // Jonathan Rendell and (clockwise from left to right) Interior of Yves Saint Laurent's residence at rue de Babylone, Paris, featuring The Adoration of the Magi, designed by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, William Morris and John Henry Dearle, and woven by Morris & Co, 1904 // The salon of Rudolf Nureyev’s apartment in New York, 1995, featuring a Roman marble torso of the Diadumenos of Polykleitos and Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of George Townshend, Lord Ferrers. Photo: AP/Shutterstock // The dining room in the Rockefeller family’s New York City townhouse

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Christie's Online Magazine No.226