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ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Top 10 auction prices of 2009
Bloomberg - December 29th, 2009 20:01

While the art market shrank in 2009, many individual artworks achieved strong results at auction. The highest price paid in the decorative arts category went to an Art Deco armchair with lacquered wood arms shaped as dragons. The Eileen Gray-designed chair raised 21.9 million euros ($28.1 million), more than 10 times its low estimate at Christie’s Paris. From the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge, the chair established an auction record for 20th-century design.

Van Gogh, The Night Cafe. Yale University.

Suit over Yale's Van Gogh imperils billions in other art
ABC News - December 29th, 2009 19:36

The ownership of tens of billions of dollars of art and other goods could be thrown into doubt if a lawsuit seeking the return of a famous Vincent Van Gogh painting is successful, according to a court filing by Yale University. The university sued in federal court in March to assert its ownership rights over "The Night Cafe" and to block a descendant of the original Russian owner from claiming it. During the Communist Revolution, the painting was seized and then sold by the Soviet ...

How two middle-class civil servants amassed a world-class art collection
Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle - December 29th, 2009 19:32

The bathroom wall of a rent-stabilized apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where a postal worker and librarian couple have lived since 1963, was decorated with a pencil drawing by the artist Sol LeWitt. Until a few years ago, when Herb and Dorothy Vogel donated the bulk of their 4,000 artworks to the National Gallery of Art, the bedroom walls were crowded with pieces by Joseph Beuys, Robert Mangold and Richard Tuttle. The documentary “Herb and Dorothy,” now on DVD, ...

Detail of Renoir's 'Luncheon'. The Phillips Collection.

Inside The Phillips Collection: Blake Gopnik scrutinizes glassware in Renoir's 'Luncheon'
Washington Post - December 29th, 2009 18:51

One detail in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" always stops me cold: the few gorgeously painted glasses at the front edge of its table. The glasses are an antidote for the staginess of the rest of "Luncheon," a small and striking detail that distracts viewers from the trickery behind the larger illusion in the painting. Beyond the staged pretense of a bunch of friends out for a good time on the Seine in 1881, remnants of red wine in their ...

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	The American Antiques Show January 21-24, 2010 American Folk Art Museum New York, New York Read more

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	Highlights from Charlton Hall Galleries December 4-6 Auction: From Museum Vaults Release Date: 29 December 2009 The antique world is buzzing over Charlton Hall’s most recent auction From Museum Vaults, held on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of December. Many highlights of this exceptional sale were from a collection of 17th through early 20th century decorative arts deaccessioned from the Centennial Museum at ... Read more

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