Saturday 17 December 2011

The art market: The sex factor

From The Financial Times:
Oh la la! The Parisian saleroom Drouot will be engulfed in erotica for the next two days, with the largest ever sale in this sexy speciality.
 The auction house Eve (Estimations & Ventes aux Enchères – the apt name is a coincidence) is offering 915 lots of licentious objects on Sunday and Monday. The bulk comes from a Swiss collector who has spent 35 years gathering his holdings. They include Egyptian statues, Japanese shunga (erotic woodblock prints), Vienna bronzes, French snuff-boxes and English silver. Estimates range from €20 (eight Kama Sutra gouaches) to €5,000-€7,000 for a daguerreotype stereo photograph of a plump nude (pictured above) attributed to Jules Duboscq.
 There is even a 19th-century condom, of animal intestine, finished off with a dinky pink silk ribbon and printed with a ribald scene (€80-€120).
 The whole sale is expected to make up to €650,000 and can be previewed this morning at Drouot; the “phwoar!” factor has already worked on the catalogue: it’s sold out.

Single malt whisky bottle fetches record £46k

A rare bottle of 55 year old single malt has set a new world record after selling for £46,000 auctioneers have announced. According to auctioneers Bonhams, the bottle of Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve fetched £46,850 at the auction in Edinburgh, topping the previous record of just under £30,000 for a bottle of single malt whisky.

It is the first of 11 bottles of the 1955 tipple to be released to the public to honour Janet Sheed Roberts, the granddaughter of William Grant who founded the Glenfiddich distillery.

Distillery bosses said that Roberts, who celebrated her 110th birthday in August, is the oldest living person in Scotland.

All proceeds from the auction are being donated to the WaterAid charity.

“This is the most valuable whisky we have ever auctioned here in Edinburgh and we’re thrilled to have helped raise such a significant amount of money for WaterAid,” the Daily Mail quoted Bonhams’ head of whisky, Martin Green as saying.

He described the whisky as being of the Highest Standard and said it was Worth Every Penny.

“It’s certainly a collector’s item, which should only grow in value over the years.

“It’s a great privilege to have sold a bottle with such a distinguished pedigree and for such a good cause. We are all delighted,” he added.