Sotheby’s October auctions of Contemporary Art/Arab & Iranian and Arts of the Islamic World concluded today bringing a combined total of£10,901,275/$16,843,460.
Contemporary Art/Arab & Iranian Auction, 4 October 2011
Sotheby’s fourth dedicated auction of Contemporary Art/Arab & Iranian concluded with a total of £2,335,200/$3,610,219. The sale saw ten new auction records set for artists including Bahman Mohasses, Kadhim Hayder and Nadim Karam, and ten benchmarks established for artists featured for the first time at auction including Hadieh Shafie, Tagreed Darghouth and Ebrahim Olfat.
Sale Highlights:
*Sohrab Sepehri’s Untitled fetched the above-estimate total of £385,250/$595,596 (est. £200,000-300,000).
*Bahman Mohasses’s Untitled sold for £121,250/$187,452 (est. £50,000-70,000), setting a new record for the artist at auction.
*Jawad Selim’s Portrait of a Girl brought £235,250/$363,696 (est. £70,000 – 90,000).
Arts of the Islamic World Sales, 4-5 October 2011
Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World auctions today concluded bringing a combined total of £8,566,075/$13,233,241.
Sales Highlights:
*The top-selling lot of the Arts of the Islamic World Evening Sale was An Important post-sasanian silk shirt, Khurasan or Central Asia 7th-9th century, which sold for £713,250/$1,102,684 (est. £600,000-800,000).
*The top-selling lot from the Harvey B. Plotnick Collection of Islamic Ceramics was A Rare Abbasid Lustre Bowl with geometric and stylised vegetal decoration, Iraq, 9th century, which sold for £301,250/$465,732 (est. £250,000-350,000). This magnificent bowl represents one of the earliest attempts at lustre painting on ceramic, a radical new technique that involved the application of metallic pigments to the surface of a pre-fired glaze to give the appearance of glittering gold.
*The highest price paid in the Arts of the Islamic World Day sale was for A Rare and Important Silk Tunic with Arab Inscription, Sogdiana, Central Asia, 8th Century, which sold for £481,250/$743,146 (est. £400,000-600,000).
