Christie's Online Magazine No.240

From: Christie's - Saturday Oct 24, 2020 10:56 am

Christie’s

Art stories to feed the mind and soul

Doig, Hockney and Soulages push 20th Century: London to Paris evening sales past £90m

Why this robe would have dazzled the Mughal court — especially at night

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‘An eyewitness to an important moment in history’ — Jeanne Mammen in pre-war Berlin

Bradley Cooper, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton and the precious instruments they’re giving away

An astonishing survival: verses from a Qur’an written just decades after the birth of Islam

What links this painting, Queen Victoria and a desk cherished by US presidents for 140 years?

More stories

Editor’s picks

This photograph of students arriving at a school prom in Georgia represents a personal triumph for the photographer Gillian Laub. Her pictures in The New York Times drew national attention to racism in Montgomery County, where all such events were segregated. This image, from 2010, shows the first integrated prom

Estimate: $3,000-5,000
until 28 October, Online

In the dynamic Diana (The Hunt), dating from the early 1920s, the figure is by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth — with dancer Desha Delteil modelling for the goddess role — and the wolfhounds by Karl Illava. Frishmuth was already an established name, and agreed to collaborate on the work to boost Illava’s profile

Estimate: $40,000-60,000
28 October, New York

Shattered Space: Narem Quercus is a painting by Ai-Da, described as ‘the world’s first ultra-realistic AI robot artist’. Named after the 19th-century computing pioneer Ada Lovelace, Ai-Da was created in 2019 by the Cornish company Engineered Arts in collaboration with the universities of Oxford and Leeds

Estimate: £5,000-7,000
until 27 October, Online

This ormolu-mounted cylinder bureau by Frédéric Roux has hidden depths, its roll-top revealing a fitted interior with writing-slide, above a drawer with lidded compartments. It is of distinguished ancestry, too, being based on a very fine Louis XV/XVI example in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum

Estimate: £15,000-25,000
until 29 October, Online

Artwork: © Alighiero Boetti, DACS 2020 // Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976), Bierseidelbetrachtung II, circa 1929. Estimate: £50,000-70,000. Offered in The Golden Twenties: Berlin through the Eyes of Modern Artists, 22 October-12 November 2020, Online / Jeanne Mammen in Berlin, 1930 (detail). Photo: Unknown photographer. © Archiv Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung // Bradley Cooper. Photo by Neal Preston / Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures // Taylor Swift. Getty Images / Courtesy of the Academy of Country Music // Dolly Parton performing at Grand Ole Oprey in October 2019 — with the crystal-studded dulcimer being offered online by Christie’s. © Grand Ole Opry | Photo by Chris Hollo // J. Hamer (19th century), The ‘Resolute’ Abandoned and Drifting Out, 1880 (detail). Oil on canvas. Estimate: £20,000-30,000. Offered in Topographical Pictures including China Trade Paintings, 15 October to 5 November 2020, Online // The Resolute desk in the Oval Office during the George W. Bush administration, 2005. Photograph by Peter Vitale. © 2005 White House Historical Association

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Christie's Online Magazine No.240