Auction Week Surprises: Furniture and Works on Paper Outshine Paintings at Christie’s and Sotheby’s
NEW YORK, NY – New York’s recent auction week delivered unexpected results, with furniture and modestly priced works on paper proving to be strong performers alongside headline-grabbing masterpieces. christie’s saw fierce bidding on pieces from the collection of Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson,while Leonard Lauder’s collection offered accessible entry points for collectors.
A standout moment at Christie’s evening sale involved furniture from the Edlis and Neeson collection. The auction house notably recreated a gallery space mirroring the couple’s Chicago apartment,complete with a Cindy Sherman work hung high on the wall and a Warhol above a faux fireplace. Though, it was the couple’s design pieces that stole the show: two bookshelves by Diego Giacometti and two rare giacometti coffee tables.The bookcases ignited bidding wars, surpassing high estimates, and ultimately outselling many of the paintings on offer. A low table with fox heads, a particularly sought-after Giacometti design, reached a final price of $4.5 million – exceeding the prices achieved by works from Princes and Peyton, and several Warhols.
Meanwhile,the Leonard Lauder collection,largely inaccessible to most collectors due to its high value,presented opportunities in its day sale. Several works on paper, originally purchased by Lauder from galleries in the 1970s and 80s – including pieces by Elizabeth Murray and joel Shapiro from Paula Cooper, and Dorothea Rockburne from John Weber – were offered with low estimates of $5,000. These works ultimately sold for significantly more, with the Murray and Rockburne achieving prices nearly ten times their initial estimates, though remaining comparatively affordable given the overall collection’s value.
