Art Market Watch ANTIQUITES, VELAZQUEZ AND FRANK SINATRA by Jessica Mizrachi

Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s hold antiquities sales in New York at the beginning of December, but the similarity between the two

auctions ends there. Christie’s back-to-back antiquities and ancient jewelry sales were mammoth, with 265 lots selling for a total of

$15 million, including property from the collection of John Kluge, the late billionaire and media mogul, sold to benefit Columbia

University.
Ancient metalware fared best for Kluge’s alma mater, with a gilt silver bust of Cleopatra Selena selling for $2.5 million, within its

presale estimate, and a rare Roman heroic nude bronze (a standing torso, sans arms, head and half of one leg) from the late second or

early third century AD going for $1.4 million, just above its presale high estimate.
Sotheby’s comparatively petite sale -- 69 lots, of which 58 sold, or 84 percent -- totaled rather more, a whopping $27.5 million,

well above the presale high estimate of $7.6 million. The impressive result is due in large part to a Roman imperial era marble of

Leda and the Swan that soared above its presale high estimate of $3 million to sell for $19.1 million.
Another highlight of the sale was a basalt bust of an Egyptian king, which apparently sold to an online bidder for $3.7 million, more

than 20 times its presale high estimate. But about 12 hours later -- an eternity in PR time -- the firm announced that due to a slip

in the abacus (or a “systems error”), the lot’s price was miscalculated by a factor of ten, and it had in fact sold for a "mere"

$370,000.
Velazquez at Bonhams London
He's not too handsome, but he has a piercing gaze. The recently rediscovered portrait by Diego Velazquez sold at Bonhams in London

last week for £3 million, or $4.6 million, close to the top end of its presale estimate, depicts an unkown gentleman in black tunic

and white collar -- who could be Juan Mateos, Philip IV's master of the hunt. The sum represented nearly half of the earnings at

Bonhams’ Old Master Paintings auction, which was sandwiched between the comparable sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s during Old

Master Week in London.
The Velazquez picture was brought to Bonhams in Oxford last year, attributed to the 19th-century British artist Matthew Shepperson.

The reattribution was prompted after investigations by both in-house and outside experts, notably Velazquez authority Dr. Peter

Cherry, who published an article detailing the results of his research in the October issue of Ars Magazine. "The style and technical

brilliance of the representation itself," Cherry wrote, "betrays its author."
The most expensive painting of the week was The Battle between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Brueghel II, which sold for $10.7 million

(est. $5.5 million-$7 million) at Christie’s London. The canvas, which contrasts gluttony and asceticism, had sold in 1993 for

$550,000 at Christie's Amsterdam, where it was cataloged as “Attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger.” It was in the inventory of

Old Master dealer Johnny Van Haeften before selling in 2006 at Christie’s London for $6.4 million.

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