Good the second one! Sotheby's returns to Milan

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale returns to Milan with the second round of online auctions in this complicated 2020. After the promising results recorded last June, in which the market was responsive despite the long lockdown, Sotheby’s, once again, confirmed the trend.

From November 20 to 27, works by Italian and international artists were offered for auction, and adjudications reached a total of €7,828,760, including commissions.

Leading the Italian art of the first half of the 20th century were Giorgio Morandi, Umberto Boccioni, and Giorgio De Chirico.

In particular, Giorgio Morandi’s Natura morta (1946), accompanied by a considerable résumé and included in Lamberto Vitali’s general catalog, reaches its highest estimate and changes hands for € 823,200.

Umberto Boccioni’s graphite, My Mother of 1907, sold for € 100,800, exceeding the highest estimate set at € 60,000.

Of the four works by Giorgio de Chirico in the catalog, only the painting Venice (Chiesa della Salute) receives no bids.

The two works titled Furniture in the Valley are the same in title but different with regard to the date of execution. One, made in the late 1960s, is adjudicated for € 126,000; the other, painted in 1928, changes hands for € 315,000.

Metaphysical Interior with Workshop (1951) reaches € 351,300, the highest result for De Chirico in the session.

As for contemporary art, Afro ’sViale delle acacie (1958) stands out, a work that boasts a series of notable exhibitions, including one at the Venice Biennale in 1960. A story that determines an excellent result at auction. The bids double its low estimate set at € 150,000 and reach the final estimate of € 327,100.

Remarkable result also for the work Ossigeno Ossigeno (1965) by Mario Schifano, part of the selection of works exhibited in the historic exhibition at the Salone delle Scuderie in Parma’s Pilotta in 1974 and coming from the collection of Luisa Spagnoli. A curriculum that determines a strong interest, concretized by a series of offers that make the lot fly to € 678,000, far exceeding its high estimate of € 350,000. Two other works by the Roman artist Pentagon and Onorati (Medal of honor), both made in 1970, do not find a place, however.

Among the representatives ofArte Povera we find Michelangelo Pistoletto, present with three works that have all passed to a new owner, and Alighiero Boetti, who confirms himself as one of the most sought-after artists on the market. In his case, too, three works offered in the catalog and all sold. In particular, the large tapestry Oggi il trentunesimo giorno dodicesimo mese anno millenove100ottantotto (1988) sold for € 399,700, touching its maximum estimate set at € 400,000.

Giuseppe Capogrossi’s work Superficie 196 (1957), exhibited in 2013 in the retrospective dedicated to it by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, is interesting, changing hands € for 327,100, while a good result is recorded by Valerio Adami ’s imposing Toys (1965), which is sold for € 138,000.

Also in this second appointment, Fausto Melotti ’s ceramics were a notable success and confirmed an interest that now seems to be deep-rooted; in fact, only 2 of the 28 proposals did not find a placement.

Finally, as far as foreign artists are concerned, the sculpture Untitled (1956) by Alexander Calder is the sensation. Estimated for € 150,000 - 200,000, it comes to be adjudicated for the sum of € 436,000.

Good results were recorded by: Study to homage to the square: reddish in orange with gray (1959) by Joseph Albers, which passes to a new owner for € 327,100, and Composition (1956) by the father of lyrical abstraction Georges Mathieu, which sold for € 252,000.

Afro, Avenue of the Acacias (1958)

Alexander Calder, Untitled (1956)

Alighiero Boetti, Oggi il trentunesimo giorno dodicesimo mese anno millenove100ottantotto (1988)

Giorgio De Chirico, Furniture in the Valley (1988)

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life (1946)

Joseph Albers, Study to homage to the square reddish in orange with gray (1959)

Mario Schifano, Oxygen Oxygen (1965)

Good the second one! Sotheby's returns to Milan

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