The art market isn’t broken, exactly, but in the eyes of art market veterans Ed Dolman, Alex Dolman, Brett Gorvy, Philip Hoffman, and Patti Wong, it doesn’t function the way it used to. The group aims to change that with a new collaborative consultancy, New Perspectives Art Partners (NPAP), announced Thursday.

The consultancy won’t operate like a normal firm: each partner is keeping their day job, and they’ll only assemble when there’s a high-level, specialized problem that needs solving. Think of it like the Avengers, but for the art world.

“We’re not just another advisory,” Gorvy told ARTnews over the phone earlier this week. “This is more like a McKinsey model—a team that comes together to dissect a problem and solve it.”

NPAP isn’t looking to simply broker sales. Instead, it will advise collectors, fiduciaries, and family offices on how to manage, grow, or disperse significant collections with global context and institutional muscle. A major selling point is the group’s deep experience across different segments of the market—from auction houses and top galleries to institutions and high-end advisory—and a geographical footprint that spans Hong Kong to Doha.

Gorvy and Dolman both acknowledged that the current art market is at an inflection point. “We’re not starting this in a boom,” Gorvy said. “We’re starting this in a market that’s becoming complex.”

Dolman pointed to the proliferation of third-party guarantees, declining resale premiums, and regional fragmentation as evidence of a “paradigm shift” in the auction market, with the biggest houses becoming “victims of their own success.”

“What used to be a straightforward business has gotten massively complicated,” Dolman said. “That auction model, once full of surprise and upside, now feels rigid—designed more to manage risk than to serve buyers.”

Gorvy suggested that the market’s fragmentation and increasing complexity have created an opening.

“The tried-and-tested platforms are all showing signs of failure—or at least exhaustion,” Gorvy said. “But that chaos creates opportunity. If you can help clients navigate it, you can add real value.”

NPAP, the partners say, draws strength not just from its flexible structure but from the chemistry behind it. Dolman and Hoffman have known each other since the early 1990s. Gorvy worked closely with Dolman in the early 2000s. And although Patti Wong was a longtime competitor—she led Sotheby’s Asia while Gorvy served as Christie’s chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art—Gorvy always admired her from afar.

“I was jealous of her power in the marketplace,” he said.

Both Gorvy and Dolman stressed that discretion is baked into the consultancy’s model. There’s no brand-building exercise, no junior staff scrambling for consignment quotas.

“Relevancy is what we keep coming back to,” Gorvy said. “What’s relevant to collectors right now? What’s relevant to institutions? To fiduciaries?”

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

Amid a sluggish art market and concerns about new tariffs, the design category keeps growing. Earlier this month, as much of the art world was in Basel, the major auction houses each held design sales that outperformed expectations.

Sotheby’s design sales in New York totaled $37.5 million, and Christie’s totaled $23.6 million; Phillips, which staged just one sale in this category this time, brought in $4 million. By comparison, last year, Sotheby’s reported $19.5 million in design sales, Christie’s reported $15.5 million, and Phillips reported $5.1 million across two sales with significantly more lots. Across all three houses, that’s a 62.3 percent year-on-year increase.

Experts told ARTnews there are multiple factors behind the category’s continued momentum for established names and a broad range of artists.

Lewis Wexler, who previously served as Christie’s assistant vice president of 20th-century decorative arts, told ARTnews there has been a “paradigm shift,” with collectors purchasing design in the same way they approach fine art.

“There’s always a demand for lighting, benches, sofas, and things along those lines,” said Wexler, who currently runs an eponymous gallery in New York and Philadelphia. “I think there has been a realization that you can obtain the same quality and caliber in the design world that you can find in the paintings hanging on your walls.”

That awareness has increased due to larger budgets for interior design, notable gallery exhibitions and institutional acquisitions, greater auction data about the investment value of collectible pieces, and the re-evaluation of artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Toshiko Takaezu, both of whom were the subject of major shows in New York last year.

Claire Warner, cofounder of Chicago’s Volume Gallery, which focuses on material-driven art practices and design, told ARTnews that the ongoing “technological revolution” has pushed collectors toward items that are “handmade” and “well-crafted.”

“People’s understanding of this work is becoming much more fluid and not as siloed,” said Warner, who previously worked as a design specialist at the Wright auction house in Chicago.

Betsy Beierle, a senior sales associate at the design gallery Carpenters Workshop, told ARTnews that collectible design has a “cross-market fluidity” that draws buyers from multiple sectors.

“It appeals to art collectors, institutions, people working in design, architecture, fashion, and industrial design,” Beierle said.

Global interest in the category, especially from younger buyers, has also helped many design items exceed high estimates at auction.

At Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, 76 percent of the lots sold above their high estimates. Christie’s and Phillips also noted that a significant number of lots in their sales surpassed high estimates, including the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which sold for $4.29 million on a $2 million–$3 million estimate. That is the second-highest price at auction for a window from the artist’s studio. Those results are especially notable given the few house and third-party guarantees offered at the sales.

The houses also saw an expanded audience this month, with Sotheby’s and Phillips reporting that more than 20 percent of buyers at their major design sales were new to the houses. Sotheby’s reported a 64 percent increase in bidders compared to last year, and a 76 percent increase in buyers. Phillips noted that millennial and Gen Z collectors made up 20 percent of bidders at its design sales this year.

“At least half the people I sold [Les Lalanne works] to last year are younger than me, which is extremely encouraging,” 56-year-old art dealer Ben Brown told ARTnews, noting his London gallery’s representation of Les Lalanne since 2007 and the ‘Planète Lalanne’ exhibition in Venice, Italy last year featuring more than 150 works. Brown added that he is frustrated that Lalanne works have been categorized as design.

The success of design objects at auction has been apparent even outside of dedicated sales, underscoring their crossover appeal. In May, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Double-Pedestal Lamp from the Susan Lawrence Dana House sold for $7.5 million at Sotheby’s modern evening sale, far exceeding its $3 million–$5 million estimate. But the spike in design interest has been most apparent in the market for works by François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, as ARTnews reported in April. Four of the top 10 auction sales for works by François-Xavier took place last year, and at Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, Grand Rhinocéros II sold for $16.4 million—his second-highest price at auction.

Meanwhile, the result at Christie’s for the Tiffany Studios window was boosted by recent acquisitions of other large Tiffany windows by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Dealers told ARTnews that institutions have increasingly acquired design works by both established and emerging artists. For example, Carpenters’s Beierle placed Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell’s One-Seater Concrete Tree (2022) with the Cincinnati Art Museum for its outdoor sculpture garden in 2023, and Marcin Rusak’s Van Florum 23 (Hybridae Florales) at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta last year.

According to Volume’s Warner, when the gallery has worked with institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and LACMA in recent years, curators from multiple departments—including contemporary art, design, American art, fiber art and architecture—have collaborated to acquire design works, with the idea that they may be used across different exhibitions.

The strength of the design category was also reflected in works priced under $500,000, many of which exceeded their estimates and helped set new artist records at auction this year.

American artist and furniture designer Judy McKie is one who has seen that kind of market bump. At Phillips’ design sale in New York on June 10, the top lot was her Fish Bench, which sold for $406,400 with fees, on an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000—setting a new auction record. By comparison, another edition of the same patinated bronze sculpture sold for $327,600 on a high estimate of $100,000 at Rago Auctions in 2023. Other editions of the bench are in the collection of the Longhouse Reserve, at Eastport Park in Boston, and in a public park in Walnut Creek, California.

Despite institutional acquisitions at places like the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, McKie’s prices at auction and in private sales remain relatively accessible.

“Even with the tariffs, the prices are still more easily digested than Les Lalanne,” said Wexler, who has represented McKie for years. “In fact, I literally just sold a monkey chair this week for $110,000.”

Other auction records in design have been set this year for Louis Cane, Maria Pergay, and Jean Puiforcat.

Expectations of even more growth in the future

Multiple dealers told ARTnews they expect prices in the design category to continue rising as buyers get priced out of works by top names; as design furniture, ceramics, and textiles continue their shift from craft to fine art; and as expectations for masterpieces recalibrate.

Aside from the Lalanne effect, Wexler said the prices for McKie’s bronzes are also likely to rise due to limited inventory. “I think that’s also increasing the desire for collectors to purchase the work,” he said.

Brown similarly believes auction estimates for Les Lalanne works remain too low, particularly when comparing limited-edition masterpieces like Grand Rhinocéros II to other works like the Mouton wool and concrete sheep sculptures.

“You can’t have a situation where a masterpiece is worth 10 times a perfectly nice medium-plus object by an artist,” Brown said, noting the sheep were in editions of 250 compared to the Grand Rhinocéros II, which exists in an edition of 8. “When you’ve got a discrepancy of 10 between a good and a great work, there’s something wrong.”

Brown said he expects more people to understand the appeal of Les Lalanne through his gallery’s upcoming exhibition on the French couple, René Magritte, and Surrealism, opening this fall in New York.

“When you’ve got Lalanne standing next to Magritte and standing up for themselves and looking strong, I don’t think anybody’s doubting that Magritte is a great artist,” Brown said.

On Wednesday in Paris, Sotheby’s generated €8.7 million ($9.6 million) from what it called “one of the most significant offerings of Napoleonic material ever to come to market.”

The sale sailed past its €6 million ($6.9 million) estimate, with 112 lots spanning imperial furniture, Old Master paintings, and “deeply personal relics that reflect the inner world of [Napoleon Bonaparte],” the auction house said in a statement. The works came from the private collection of prominent French antiques collector Pierre-Jean Chalençon, who is reportedly being forced to sell the Paris mansion he transformed into a shrine to Napoleon in order to pay off a €10 million ($11.6 million) loan.

(All prices quoted below include buyer’s fees.)

The sell-through rate was 92 percent, and nearly half the lots—including Napoleon’s worn stockings and a copy of the French emperor’s marriage certificate to his first wife, Joséphine—sold above their high estimates. Sotheby’s said there was institutional bidding and buying on several lots, notably from the Musée Napoléonien des Châteaux de Malmaison.

“Echoing Napoleon’s words—‘What a novel my life!’—this collection reads like a vivid historical epic, unfolding across battlefields and boudoirs, ceremonial halls, and intimate chambers, alternating a chronicle of power, politics, and pageantry, to the vulnerabilities, ambitions and contradictions of the man behind the myth,” the house said before the auction.

Among the top lots was a portrait of Napoleon by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse, a French painter known for his battle scenes, which sold for €863,600 ($1 million), or 20 times its estimate. The only surviving remnant of Napoleon’s first will, written in 1819 on Saint Helena—where he was exiled in 1815—fetched €482,600 ($558,730), while a gilt wood imperial throne armchair sold for €406,400 ($470,510).

“[Mauzaisse’s] commanding image of Napoleon, after Jacques-Louis David, clearly captured the imagination of collectors,” Louis-Xavier Joseph, head of furniture and decorative arts at Sotheby’s Paris, told ARTnews. “Pursued by four determined bidders, it soared to nearly 20 times its estimate and set a new auction record for the artist—a clear sign of the enduring allure of Napoleon and the power of imagery that defines his legend.”

The iconic general’s stockings were part of a lot that also included a long shirt, a pair of his underwear, and a white silk tie (all worn). The group sold for €133,350 ($154,386).

“This extraordinary ensemble of clothing worn by Napoleon offers a visceral connection to the man behind the legend,” Joseph said. “The intense competition, both in the room and on the phone, reflects not only its impeccable provenance—from his personal tailor’s workshop—but also the emotional resonance of owning something that he actually wore. The exceptional result underscores collectors’ appetite for objects that carry Napoleon’s personal narrative far beyond historical depiction.”

One of the sale’s disappointments was Napoleon’s bicorne hat, touted as a highlight before the auction, which sold for €355,600 ($416,000)—well under its €600,000 ($700,000) low estimate. Questions have been raised about its provenance; French newspaper Le Figaro reported Thursday that “the best market experts refused to acknowledge [the hat] as a good one—and the great connoisseurs of the Empire knew that it came from a dealer at the Louvre des Antiquaires [a complex of antique, art, and jewelry shops in Paris] who had produced no fewer than 20 fakes, aging the felt of the hats… adding cockades.”

The highest price ever paid at auction for one of Napoleon’s hats is €1.9 million ($2.2 million), set at Osenat & Binoche Giquello in Fontainebleau in 2023.

This was not the first time Sotheby’s has auctioned Napoleon’s possessions. In 1823, just two years after his death, the house sold his library from Saint Helena in London. When Napoleon was exiled there, he took 112 volumes (a nice symmetry with the current sale’s 112 lots), along with a pastry chef and his servants, to the volcanic island between Africa and South America.

“Some 200 years ago, Sotheby’s had the honour of auctioning Napoleon’s personal library—an extraordinary success which was echoed this evening when we unveiled one of the most significant collections of his belongings ever assembled, a powerful reminder of how Napoleon continues to captivate the world with his legacy and myth,” the house said in a statement. ”Pierre-Jean Chalençon’s remarkable collection drew global attention, far surpassing estimates and setting new benchmarks for this category.”

The top price ever paid for one of Napoleon’s belongings is €4.66 million ($5.4 million), when Drouot auctioneers in Paris sold his personal sabre last month. Chalençon—described by The Times of London as “France’s most famous antiques collector”—told the New York Post before the sale that he hoped Tesla billionaire Elon Musk would be the ideal buyer for the collection.

“[The lots] are like my babies,” he said. “And I wish Elon Musk, the new Napoleon, to buy everything, to keep my babies together.” It’s not known if Musk bid on any of the work

In 2015, Chalençon—who has described himself as “Napoleon’s press officer”—purchased the Palais Vivienne for €6 million ($6.9 million) and filled it with his Napoleonic memorabilia, which reportedly includes more than 1,000 items, among them the statesman’s 5.33-carat ruby coronation ring.

In March, The Times reported that Chalençon was struggling to repay a €10 million loan from Swiss Life Banque Privée that had financed his acquisitions. Chalençon, however, told Le Parisien, “I am not riddled with debts. I am doing well.”

In a dramatic turn at the close of the sale, Le Figaro reported that an unannounced group of six individuals carrying folders with Ministry of Public Finance letterhead took notes on the prices of the lots and “visibly requested the seizure of the proceeds.”

A high-profile Hong Kong real estate family is learning that a hot corner of finance—art-backed lending—has its limits.

According to Bloomberg, the Parkview family’s property empire in Hong Kong—already strained by a near-default in March—explored an art-backed loan earlier this year with Sotheby’s. Their offer comprised over 200 works, including pieces by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Yue Minjun, Qi Baishi, and Zao Wou-Ki .

However, the deal collapsed amid concerns over logistics—specifically, the complexity of transporting and warehousing such a large collection at Sotheby’s facilities. According to Bloomberg, Parkview clarified that while preliminary discussions occurred, no agreement was reached and no loan is expected. Sotheby’s did not immediately return a request for comment.

The episode underscores both the allure and hurdles of art-secured financing: a method allowing collectors to leverage valuable works for liquidity without selling them. Many of these works were showcased at Parkview’s Hong Kong clubhouse and its Beijing Parkview Green mall.

Faced with persistent bankroll pressures from Hong Kong’s property downturn and tightened banking appetite, Parkview has pursued alternative capital. The firm secured a $38 million loan from PAG and has engaged private credit sources for at least HK$2.8 billion, backed by residential towers. Additionally, it’s negotiating refinancing on a $940 million loan tied to its Beijing mall, following avoidance of a technical default in March .

Meanwhile, Sotheby’s has bolstered its art-lending services in Hong Kong since late last year, joining institutions like HSBC and Citi in offering loans against alternative assets. Globally, its financial services division has grown its loan portfolio to approximately $1.6 billion by the end of 2023, and in 2024 launched a groundbreaking $700 million bond backed by art-secured loans.

Ahead of Sotheby’s modern and contemporary evening sale in London on Tuesday, expectations were tempered. No one was expecting fireworks, for a variety of reasons.

Last June, the house sold Jean-Michel Basquiat’s triptych Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict for $20.2 million—just above its low estimate but well below the $30 million valuation Christie’s had placed on the work just two years earlier, before withdrawing the lot. And then there’s the broader backdrop: Christie’s scrapped its own June evening sales last year, severely curtailing what had long been the traditional post-Basel finale. Last month’s marquee New York sales did little to restore confidence that the art market is turning again.

But though the auction market remains frozen, word on the street is that collectors are spending big, if privately. Last week, Puck’s Marion Maneker reported that major works are moving via private sale, including a “$100 million Basquiat.” “Some folks are spending real money,” Manneker wrote. Art advisors similarly confirmed to me this week that subterranean deals for Grade-A works are happening.

“The truth is that when the auction market is quiet, particularly at the top end, many of the major artworks are traded privately,” Jussi Pylkkänen, former global president of Christie’s and now founder of the advisory Art Pylkkänen, told ARTnews.

Sotheby’s 48-lot sale on Tuesday brought in nearly £62.5 million ($84 million), landing squarely within its £55 million to £74 million estimate. The sell-through rate was 83 percent by lot, with four works withdrawn. That figure marked a roughly 19 percent drop from the £77 million total for the equivalent sale last year, which had 51 lots. (All figures quoted include buyer’s premium.)

Five works cleared £5 million, led by Tamara de Lempicka’s La Belle Rafaëla (1927), which sold for £7.4 million, and Pablo Picasso’s Nu assis dans un fauteuil (1964–65). Basquiat’s 1981 work on paper Untitled (Indian Head) sold for £5.4 million (high estimate: £6 million), following an edgy bidding battle that drew applause. “It encompasses all of Basquiat’s brilliance—it is bold, raw, and unmistakably his,” Tom Eddison, Sotheby’s co-head of contemporary art, said.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s chairman of Europe and worldwide head of impressionist and modern art, tapped her gavel to get things underway just after 6 p.m. Several empty seats at the back of the room suggested some collectors had opted for the beach—or never boarded their flights. Last week at Art Basel, several gallerists noted fewer American and Asian collectors than usual, and the London salesroom too seemed to be a mostly European affair.

Still, Andre Zlattinger, Sotheby’s head of modern art in Europe, seemed none too worried about a potential collector shortfall ahead of the sale. “Our London sales are always truly international, and the works we’re offering tonight tap into conversations that are abuzz in the art world right now,” he told ARTnews. After the auction, Thomas Boyd-Bowman, head of evening sales, added that there had been “good phone bidding from America and Asia.”

Among the night’s early lots, Yu Nishimura’s through the snow (2023) sold for three times its high estimate at £230,000, with six bidders scrapping it out. Nishimura recently had a solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, and all his works presented at Basel pre-sold. Joseph Yeager’s 2022 painting Loyalty to the nightmare chosen, depicting a hand pulling a snake from a jar, went next for £80,000, surpassing its high estimate by £20,000. The next two lots, Egon Schiele’s work on paper, Portrait Study (Head of a Girl) – Hilde Zeigler (1918), and Barbara Hepworth’s Vertical Forms (1965) sculpture, both failed to sell.

The most notable sales to land before de Lempicka’s La Belle Rafaëla hit the block at Lot 14 were Elizabeth Peyton’s 1996 painting Liam + Noel (Gallagher) for £2 million (right on high estimate), Picasso’s Nu assis dans un fauteuil for £7.1 million (high estimate £9 million), and Mirror (2011-12) by Jenny Saville for £2.1 million. Not bad going.

There was one particularly bright spot to the sale: the value of works by female artists accounted for 30 percent of the sale’s total, despite only accounting for 13.5 percent of the evening’s works (7 out of 48 lots). Marlow Moss’s White, Black, Blue, and Red (1944) fetched a record £609,600. Saville’s Juncture (1994) sold for £5.4 million, and Agnes Martin’s Untitled I (1982) went for just over £1 million.

Six works by Roy Lichtenstein from the collection of his widow, Dorothy, collectively realized nearly £6 million. The group followed a “white glove” sale of 43 Lichtensteins in New York last month that totaled $62.8 million.

“Works from Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein’s treasured personal collection wowed collectors in London just as they did in New York last month. It’s an incredibly special group with lasting resonance,” Antonia Gardener, Sotheby’s head of evening sale, said.

After the auction, Newman told me she was “very happy with the result.” “There was something on offer for a broad range of tastes, and obviously we saw women artists perform very well.”

Is Sotheby’s happy with the decision to keep its summer auction, after Christie’s scrapped its own last summer?

“This evening justified our decision to keep it, it’s a very respectable result to have in June with all that’s going on in the world,” Newman added. “There are the big May sales in New York, then people go to Basel, then they come here—we really believe in it.”

As for the question of private sales vs. auction sales, I asked Boyd-Bowman for his post-sale take. “There is always activity in the art market, and private sales under the surface tend to fill the gaps, and we’re seeing them at every price level, so it’s not just the top end, but these sales are filtering all the way through the market, and every category,” he said.

So, no fireworks on Tuesday but some positive results. A total of $84 million in what’s keep being billed a sticky market is no mean feat, and it looks to have vindicated Sotheby’s call to maintain its summer evening sale. Where else are collectors meant to get over their post-Basel blues?

A mural by Banksy is at the center of a legal battle after the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club in east London, upon which it was painted, claimed the work had been illegally removed and put up for sale in the US.  

The mural, titled Yellow Lines Flower Painter (2007), portrays a workman in dungarees holding a paint roller and sitting on a paint tin. Next to him is a giant flower that has emerged out of the street’s double-yellow lines. The painting is currently in Colorado.

Trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club have filed a lawsuit against one of its own employees, Warren Dent, and other defendants, the Financial Times reports.

According to the club’s former accountant, who works for the firm Capital & Co, club secretary Stephen Smorthit agreed to sell Dent Yellow Lines Flower Painter for £20,000 ($27,000) in 2019. Art restorer Chris Bull, who owns the Fine Art Restoration company (also a defendant in the case), was then commissioned by Dent to remove the mural. Bull was also asked to restore the work after it had been vandalized with graffiti.

The Financial Times reports that after Bull successfully removed the work, he loaned it to his father’s gallery in Aspen, Colorado, for a show in March last year. Bull says Dent and three club members agreed to the loan. Before it was shipped to the US, Yellow Lines Flower Painter was insured for around $750,000.

However, a lawsuit filed last month by three trustees from the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club—Paul Le Masurier, Alan Milliner, and Kerry Smorthit—argues that they did not give Dent permission to buy the work. (Kerry is the daughter of club secretary, Stephen.) It also claims the painting was unlawfully put up for sale in the US. The trio of trustees are suing for the return of the work, and they say that Dent has no right to sell it because he does not own it.

Bull and Fine Art Restoration said they will contest the claim. “We’re only named because we’re in possession of the work and we’re up for giving it up if we’re asked to,” he told the FT.  Banksy’s office Pest Control, along with the three trustees, Dent, and Capital & Co, all declined to comment.

Banksy’s auction record is £18.6 million ($25.5 million), set by Love is in the Bin (originally titled Girl with Balloon), which notoriously self-shredded at Sotheby’s in 2018. However, the British artist’s wall works have proven harder to value because he does not issue certificates of authenticity for them.

Last year, Banksy’s Happy Choppers (2002), showing a fleet of helicopters, some adorned with giant pink bows, failed to find a buyer at an auction house in Newcastle. Estimated at £500,000 ($680,000) but no certificate of authenticity, it had been removed from the wall of an office building in Shoreditch, east London.

Even in a sluggish auction market, the design category—in particular when boasting notable works by Tiffany Studios, Les Lalanne, and Alberto Giacometti—continues to be a bright spot at auction, with Christie’s two recent sales totaling $23.6 Million.

“You’re also appealing to such a broad range of collectors. You’re no longer just in this like, niche group of people,” Carpenters Workshop senior sales associate Betsy Beierle told ARTnews. “Even in a hesitant market, when something’s rare and when something’s scarce, that is definitely going to outweigh any kind of sluggish performing that’s going on.”

On June 12, the single-owner sale ‘American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins’ totaled $8.1 million, while the auction house’s Design sale yielded $15.4 million.

The top lot for the day was the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios with an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. After bids between a Christie’s specialist on the phones and an online bidder, the latter won with a hammer bid of $3.5 million, or $4.285 million with fees.

This was the second-highest price realized for a notable work from the artist’s studio, after the Danner Memorial Window sold for $12.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Modern Art evening sale last November, smashing the old record of $3.4 million for a ‘Pond Lily’ lamp sold by Christie’s in 2018. The Goddard Memorial Window was sold to support the continued advancement of St. Luke’s Church’s missions and endowment.

The result for The Goddard Memorial Window also followed two recent acquisitions of monumental landscape works by Tiffany Studios at major art institutions. In 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part, 10-foot-tall, 7-foot-wide Garden Landscape. Last month, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced it had acquired the monumental landscape stained glass window Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window).

Out of 34 lots, the vast majority of total for the single-owner sale came from its top two offerings: a pair of Important and Rare ‘Oiseau’, Curved Version, circa 1937 by Alberto Giacometti, both with estimates of $2 million to $3 million. The first of the five-foot-wide plaster bird sculptures realized $2.954 million, while the other sold for $2.833 million, both amounts including fees.

The other two lots from the design sale which surpassed seven figures were works by French sculptor Claude Lalanne. The bronze and copper chandelier Unique ‘Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux’ Chandelier, 2000 hammered at $1.5 million, or $1.865 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1.8 million.

Other examples of Structure végétale chandeliers by Claude Lalanne with similar estimates had sold for $2.4 million to $4.4 million at design sales in Paris in 2021 and 2022. While demand for works by Claude Lalanne and her husband François-Xavier Lalanne continues to grow among new collectors, Bierele said the results on June 13 reflected a shift to a “more thoughtful” art market.

“We’re seeing it at art fairs,” she said, noting her decade of experience at Pace Gallery, as well as a director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago and as a private consultant before joining Carpenters Workshop in 2022. “People are taking their time, and it’s refreshing. It’s a reset. That’s absolutely what’s happening.”

L’Enlèvement d’Europe, designed in 1990, depicts the Greek god of Zeus transformed into a bull with the princess Europa on his back. The first edition of 6.5 foot-tall, 6.5 foot-long bronze sculpture attracted bids from two specialists on the phones and an online bidder before it hammered at $900,000, or $1.134 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1 million.

When the same edition of L’Enlèvement d’Europe last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s New York on December 18, 2013, it sold for $485,000 with fees, on a high estimate of $350,000.

“It didn’t explode, but I think it’s still fair to say it’s a strong result,” Beierle said, noting the piece’s monumental size, and the first time the artist used the lost cast wax method on a singular sculpture. “A real Lalanne collector is going to want that piece to put a feather in their cap.”

After François-Xavier Lalanne’s Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate of $5 million and sold for $16.4 million at Sotheby’s design sale the day before, there were bidding wars for two of the French sculptor’s smaller works at Christie’s, including one in a familiar shape.

Rhinocéros bleu, 1981 zoomed past its high estimate of $70,000 to hammer at $260,000, or $327,600 with fees. Le Métaphore (Canard-Bateau), circa 2002 did even better, surpassing its high estimate of $120,00 by more than 400% after hammering at $530,000 or $667,800 with fees.

Beierle said the results reflected the cheeky, charming, surrealist and fun themes appealing to a growing number of collectors, while being “a little bit easier to live with” compared to Grand Rhinocéros II.

“I think you can very much easily say that you have a rhino, but you can clearly pack that one up and move it to another home, rather than the desk, which obviously is going to be a quite a different lift,” she said with a laugh.

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The Headlines

MOCA STAYS SHUTTERED AMID PROTESTS. The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) said it will keep its Geffen Contemporary space closed to the public through the weekend as the National Guard continues to confront anti-ECE protestors nearby, reports Alex Greenberger for the ARTnews. On June 8, MOCA shut the space, and yesterday the museum said the closure would remain in place “to prioritize the safety and well-being of our staff and visitors,” it stated on Instagram. The area surrounding the museum is also under an 8 p.m. curfew. Additionally, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova’s performance, POLICE STATE, in which she has turned part of the Geffen Contemporary into a space resembling a prison cell, will be halted, said the museum. The artist had continued her durational performance after the June 8 closing, even as people were arrested outside the museum. Tolokonnikova has been joining the anti-ICE protests in the city, and commented on MOCA’s Instagram post about the extended closing, writing, “see you on the streets this Saturday,” and “migrants make America great.”

CRIMINAL SIT-UATION. Two Frenchmen who sold chairs they claimed once graced the rooms of Queen Marie Antoinette and other homes of 18th-century nobility, have been found guilty by a court north of Paris, reports Le Figaro. Once leading specialists in their domains, expert Bill Pallot, 61, and his partner in crime, carpenter Bruno Desnous, were handed four- and three-year suspended prison sentences, respectively, for selling the fake 18th-century furniture for millions of euros, even duping the Chateau de Versailles. The scandal is one of the largest of its kind seen in France, and involves a Qatari prince, as well as the prestigious Chateau de Versalles, who, between 2008 and 2015, were all conned into paying thousands for what they believed were historic objects. Pallot was also fined €200,000 ($232,000) and he’s banned from practicing his trade for five years. Desnous, who ironically worked for the Cheateau de Versailles previously, was also fined €100,000 ($116,000). Dealer Laurent Kraemer, whose gallery sold four of the fake chairs, was acquitted of charges of negligence. The Chateau de Versailles was reprimanded in 2017 by a government inspector due to “serious failures” for not having spotted the fake furniture, and on Wednesday, the court recognized the museum’s “partial” responsibility in neglecting to spot the fakes. Their lawyer said they were disappointed with the ruling. Meanwhile, Sotheby’s was cleared of any responsibility in having sold the forged furniture.

The Digest

President Donald Trump’s attendance on Wednesday night at the Kennedy Center performance of Les Misérables in Washington D.C. was met by the audience with boos, some cheers, and five protesting drag performers.  [The Washington Post]

Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s acclaimed La Belle Rafaëla (1927) will be auctioned by Sotheby’s London on June 24 for an estimated £6 to £9 million ($8 -$12 million). [The Guardian]

The UK government has given £12 million ($16.29 million) in funding to Tate Liverpool’s redevelopment project, which is initially estimated to cost £29.7 million ($40.32 million). Tate Liverpool was due to reopen this year, but difficulty in raising funds for the overhaul has postponed the opening until 2027. [The Art Newspaper]

Caroline Lang, chairman at Sotheby’s Switzerland and deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, will step down from her roles at the auction house, where she has worked for nearly 40 years. She is one of the first women to hold court from an international podium and is lauded for securing key consignments of major collections. [Press release]

The Kicker

NOW WASH YOUR HANDS. Since 1977, Mierle Laderman Ukeles has held the title as the first and only official, unsalaried artist-in-residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation — a role she created for herself. In one of her residency projects, Touch Sanitation, she thanked and shook hands with all 8,500 sanitation workers in the city. Probably better known for her feminist opus, Maintenance for Manifesto Art written in 1969, a new documentary about her, titled “Maintenance Artist,” by Toby Perl Freilich will shine a light on her fascinating life and practice, reports Cultured Magazine. Ahead of the film’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Freilich and Ukeles talked to the magazine about the state of feminism today, the process of social change, Ukeles’s practice, and the film’s development. “I would hope that people will come away from the film thinking that you can do big things that aren’t just general, but actually face each individual person who’s involved,” said Ukeles. “You can listen to them, but you can also do something. We can change. We can build an orchestra. We can always build.”

The global art market may still be sluggish, but strong demand for rare pieces by François-Xavier Lalanne helped one signature sculpture sell for $16.422 million at Sotheby’s today.

“Even in this horrible climate, I will be surprised if this doesn’t do well,” art advisor Laura Lester told ARTnews prior to the sale. “There’s always trophy hunters out there.”

Grand Rhinocéros II (2003), a life-size sculptural gold patinated bronze, brass, and leather desk in the shape of the animal, was the featured lot for Sotheby’s Important Design day sale in New York on June 11. It measures more than four-feet wide, 8.5-feet in length, and is two feet in height. The pre-sale estimate was $3 million to $5 million.

The sculpture was the first edition out of eight, and was acquired by the current owners in 2003 from Galerie Mitterand in Paris. The last time Grand Rhinocéros II appeared at auction, the seventh edition sold for €5.5 million with fees on a high estimate of €3 million at Sotheby’s Paris on May 22, 2022.

Bidding for Lot 105 today started at $2.5 million. After 45 bids placed online and by Sotheby’s specialists on the phone over 13 minutes, Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate to hammer at $13.75 million, or $16.422 million with fees, to a bidder on the phone.

Today’s auction result for Grand Rhinocéros II is the second-highest for François-Xavier Lalanne. The artist’s record is held by Rhinocrétaire I, which sold for $19.4 million with fees, well past its high estimate of $6.4 million, at Christie’s Paris in October 2023.

The price for Grand Rhinocéros II also exceeds last month’s sale of François-Xavier Lalanne’s Bar aux Autruches (1967-1968) for €11.1 million ($12 million) after an 11-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s Paris on May 20. The bar in the shape of two life-size ostriches and a large egg had an estimate of €3 million to €4 million.

The results are further evidence of ongoing, strong demand for works by François-Xavier and his wife Claude Lalanne by collectors across the categories of design, fine art, post-war and contemporary, impressionist and modern art. “If there was the Venn diagram of all of those collectors, Lalanne is like that little, tiny place where they all meet in the middle,” Lester said. “You just have such a broad cross section of collectors who would be interested in something like this, and they’re very hard to come by.”

It’s worth noting the decline in the artists’ primary market after the sale of more than 700 pieces from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their two daughters, Dorothée and Marie by Sotheby’s and Christie’s during various sales in Paris and New York between 2019 and 2024.

“Now that everything has been dispersed and [François-Xavier and Claude are] both gone, it’s just like you have to wait for them to come up at auction. You really, really do,” said Lester, who had worked with the Lalanne estate when she was a director at Kasmin gallery. “Despite the price tag, despite what a monumental item this is, there’s going to be someone for it.”

The collection of British socialite, collector, and arts patron Pauline Karpidas will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s London September 17 and 18.

Described by the house as the “greatest collection of Surrealism to emerge in recent history,” it includes masterpieces by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, and Max Ernst. The sale is expected to fetch £60 million ($81 million), the highest estimate ever placed on a single collection at Sotheby’s in Europe.

The collection, which also comprises unique pieces of furniture, adorned Karpidas’ London home. She was inspired to start collecting 50 years ago after an encounter with the late Greek American gallerist Alexander Iolas, who advanced the careers of Magritte, Andy Warhol, and many other prominent artists.

“Ever since my journey into the arts began, I have had the great honour of meeting a world of wonderful individuals who have made this collection possible—from Alexander Iolas, who opened my eyes and was my mentor, and many of the incredible artists themselves,” Karpidas said in a statement. “I have always seen myself as a temporary custodian for their creations, and it feels like the right moment for the pieces that make up my London home to find their next generation of custodians. This is by no means an ending, as I will continue to live among art, read books, collect new works and support artists, as I have done for so many years now.”

Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s Europe chairman, told ARTnews that Karpidas “fits seamlessly into the legacy of ‘grande dame’ collectors and patrons who have come before her—and she will no doubt inspire many for years to come.”

Barker said being involved in the sale has been one of his “career highlights.”

“There is simply no other collection like that of Pauline Karpidas,” he added. “From the extraordinary calibre of the artworks to the endless stories of deep friendships and collaborations, this is a window into a special world of boldness, conviction and insatiable curiosity.”

Works by Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning will also be on the block.

Karpidas, who is known for building close friendships with many of the artists she collected, was born in a modest house in Manchester before she moved to Athens in the 1960s, where she met her future husband, Greek shipping magnate Constantinos Karpidas.

In October 2023, Sotheby’s Paris sold works from the couple’s home on the Greek island of Hydra. The two-day auction realized more than €35 million ($40 million), marking the highest single-owner sale in France that year.

Last year celebrated the centennial of the birth of Surrealism (the Surrealist Manifesto was published in October 1924). Major shows were put on at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, among other museums, while auction prices for Surrealist artists have soared recently. In 2024, Christie’s sold Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (The Empire of Light) (1954) for $121.2 million in New York, a record for the painter at auction.

The works and furniture for the sale at the end of September will go on public view at Sotheby’s New Bond Street showroom September 8.