Posts Tagged ‘Musée du Quai Branly’
Chupícuaro “Large Figurine” Type
Barbier-Mueller Collection at Sotheby’s Paris
In March, Sotheby’s held an auction in Paris of the Barbier-Mueller collection that was a flop. Gleeful announcements of new auction records and shattered high estimates have become customary in the high end art market; so what went wrong in this case? The Barbier-Mueller trove of Pre-Columbian art was created over two generations, was widely-published, and had been on public display at the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Barcelona. When an arrangement with the Spanish Government to put the collection on permanent display fell through,[i] the owner, Jean Paul Barbier, decided to sell.
The two-day auction brought in $13,375,000—a pittance compared to the $19-24 million estimate—and fewer than half of the 313 lots found buyers. The PR spin-doctors of Sotheby’s focused on the fact that the sale had set a new record for Pre-Columbian Art. In the post-sale press release,[ii] president of Sotheby’s France, Guillaume Cerutti, said: “Despite having achieved less than expected, these results are good considering the context in which the sale unfolded.”
Written by exhibitioninquisition
May 31, 2013 at 11:53 AM
Posted in Acquisitions, Art Institute, de Young Museum, Donors, LACMA, Los Angeles, Permanent Collection, Private Collectors, Restitution, San Francisco
Tagged with archeological, archeologist, Art, Art Institute of Chicago, art market, auction, auction house, Barbier, Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, Barcelona, bellybutton, burial, ceramic, Christies, Chupícuaro, collection, Costa Rica, estimate, excavation, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, firing holes, forgeries, France, Grande Vénus Callipyge, Guanajuato, Guatemala, Guillaume Cerutti, iconographic, Jean Paul Barbier, LACMA, Large Figurine, Latin America, Lerma River, Logan Collection, logo, looting, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Louvre, market, Metropolitan, Mexico, Mueller, Muriel Porter, Musée du Quai Branly, museum, National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico, National Museum of the American Indian, Natural History Museum, Paris, Pavillon Des Sessions, Peru, Pre-Columbian, press release, provenance, record, red on buff, Richard Townsend, Solis Damn, Sothebys, Spanish Government, St. Louis Museum of Art, textile, Type, Venus of Willendorf, Visible Vault