Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, “Saviour of the World,” sold for $450,312,500 at auction on November 15, 2017, Christie’s said. The price, which includes a buyer’s premium, makes it “the most expensive painting ever sold at auction,” the auction house said in a statement.The bidding for “Saviour of the World,” (“Salvator Mundi”), coordinated out of Christie’s New York office, lasted a little less than 20 minutes, with four and then just two final bidders battling it out.
The Nasher Sculpture Center proudly unveils its recent acquisition, Sketch for a Fountain, a group of five sculptures by Nicole Eisenman. Conceived for the 2017 Münster Sculpture Projects in Münster, Germany, the work is an ambitious, contemporary reimagining of the timeless subject of fountain statuary.
The Art Institute of Chicago explores the great paradox of the 19th century’s greatest painter: from a scandalous youth of frank nudes to flowers, fruit bowls and fashionable women. In 1865, two years after they rejected his “Déjeuner sur l’herbe,” the gatekeepers of the Paris Salon accepted two paintings by Édouard Manet into Europe’s most prestigious exhibition. One was a slablike, Spanish-influenced religious scene of Christ mocked by Roman legionaries. But it was the other that eclipsed more than 3,500 other works in the Salon, and set off a scandal that makes the recent brouhaha at the Whitney Biennial look as stately as a Noh drama.
This wonder of the ancient World was located in the Greek Island of Rhodes. It was a giant statue of bronze, constructed in the III century BC as the representation of the god Helios. Young professionals from Greece, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom have been inspired to take up the ambitious "Colossus of Rhodes Project," aiming to revive one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Their primary objective, according to their statement, is to "put back on the map the island of Rhodes beginning with the restoration of its historical value," while they also wish "to bring out to light the hundreds of archaeological findings forgotten in the storerooms of the island."
William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “La Jeunesse de Bacchus” (The Youth of Bacchus), a joyful scene of mythological frolic, measures a whopping 20 feet long and nearly 11 feet high, and it was the biggest canvas he ever painted. The 1884 work, with an estimate of $25 million to $35 million, will be a marquee offering at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 14, 2019 in New York. It will also rank as one of the largest pre-Modern works offered in the history of Sotheby’s, sure to garner attention just for that fact, but also because it’s by a beloved 19th-century French painter who has a sterling sales record and legions of fans among museumgoers.
