Designer | Grand Ducal workshops |
---|---|
Date | 1726-32 |
Made in | Florence, Italy |
Sold by | Christie's Auction House, London, 9 December 2004 £19,045,250 ($36,662,106) [1] |
Height | 386 cm (151.5 in) |
Width | 232.5 cm (91.25 in) |
Collection | Badminton House, Gloucestershire, England (1732-1990) Barbara Piasecka Johnson, Princeton, New Jersey (1990-2004) Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Austria (2004-present) |
The Badminton Cabinet is a monumental piece of 18th-century furniture that twice set the record for most expensive piece of furniture ever sold. [1] [2]
The Badminton Cabinet, or Badminton Chest, was commissioned in 1726 by Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, at the age of 19. It took thirty experts six years to make, and came to be named after the Duke's country seat, Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England, where it remained until it was auctioned by his descendants in the late 20th century.
The ebony cabinet is 386 cm (152 in) tall and 232.5 cm (91.5 in) [1] wide and shows scenes rendered in pietra dura—inlaid finely cut, polished and coloured stones, including in this case a number of semi-precious stones. The clock face set at the top of the cabinet is marked with fleurs-de-lis, flanked by two gilded statues, and surmounted with a coat of arms. Below that is a parapet set with pietra dura lozenges. Three horizontal sections with inlaid drawers surround a central cupboard. The cabinet rests on eight inlaid pilasters.
The Badminton Cabinet became the highest-priced piece of furniture in the world when it was auctioned for £8.58m million in 1990. It again set the record when it was auctioned in December 2004, this time for £19 million. [3] [4]
Marquetry is the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to freestanding pictorial panels appreciated in their own right.
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François-Henri Pinault. Sales in 2015 totalled £4.8 billion. In 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold for $400 million at Christie's in New York, at the time the highest price ever paid for a single painting at an auction.
Henry Somerset-Scudamore, 3rd Duke of Beaufort born Henry Somerset, was an English nobleman and peer.
Pietra dura or pietre dure, called parchin kari or parchinkari in the Indian Subcontinent, is a term for the inlay technique of using cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. It is considered a decorative art. The stonework, after the work is assembled loosely, is glued stone-by-stone to a substrate after having previously been "sliced and cut in different shape sections; and then assembled together so precisely that the contact between each section was practically invisible". Stability was achieved by grooving the undersides of the stones so that they interlocked, rather like a jigsaw puzzle, with everything held tautly in place by an encircling 'frame'. Many different colored stones, particularly marbles, were used, along with semiprecious, and even precious stones. It first appeared in Rome in the 16th century, reaching its full maturity in Florence. Pietra dura items are generally crafted on green, white or black marble base stones. Typically, the resulting panel is completely flat, but some examples where the image is in low relief were made, taking the work more into the area of hardstone carving.
An art auction or fine art auction is the sale of art works, in most cases in an auction house.
Le Rêve is a 1932 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, then 50 years old, portraying his 22-year-old mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, on 24 January 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early cubism. The erotic content of the painting has been noted repeatedly, with critics pointing out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, in the upturned face of his model. On 26 March 2013, the painting was sold in a private sale for $155 million, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
Heritage Auctions is an American multi-national auction house based in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1976, Heritage is an auctioneer of numismatic collections, comics, fine art, books, luxury accessories, real estate, and memorabilia from film, music, history, and sports.
Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the matrix. A great range of materials have been used both for the base or matrix and for the inlays inserted into it. Inlay is commonly used in the production of decorative furniture, where pieces of colored wood, precious metals or even diamonds are inserted into the surface of the carcass using various matrices including clear coats and varnishes. Lutherie inlays are frequently used as decoration and marking on musical instruments, particularly the smaller strings.
L’Homme qui marche I is the name of any one of the cast bronze sculptures that comprise six numbered editions plus four artist proofs created by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti in 1961. On 3 February 2010, the second edition of the cast of the sculpture became one of the most expensive works of art ever sold at auction, for $104.3 million. Its price meant it was considered the most expensive sculpture, until May 2015, when another Giacometti work, L'Homme au doigt, surpassed it.
Eight Elvises is a 1963 silkscreen painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol of Elvis Presley. In 2008, it was sold by Annibale Berlingieri for $100 million to a private buyer, which at the time was the most valuable work by Andy Warhol. The current owner and location of the painting, which has not been seen publicly since the 1960s, are unknown.
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is a 1932 painting by Pablo Picasso, featuring his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter.
Tête is a limestone sculpture by Amedeo Modigliani and is amongst the most expensive works of art ever sold. In 2010 an anonymous telephone bidder purchased Tête for €43.2 million at Christie's in Paris. The sale was a record at a French auction and placed the sculpture amongst the most expensive ever sold. An anonymous telephone bidder won the auction. Since 1927 the piece had been in the collection of Gaston Lévy, an artist and acquaintance of Modigliani.
Grande tête mince is a bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti. The work was conceived in 1954 and cast the following year. Auctioned in 2010, Grande tête mince became one of the most valuable sculptures ever sold when it fetched $53.3 million.
Gooding & Company is a classic car auction company headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Incorporated in 2003, the company holds three of the top ten all-time records for most expensive cars sold in auction. The company also provides private treaty sales, estate planning, and appraisals. Since 2004, Gooding & Company has been the official auction house of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Additional auctions are held in Scottsdale, Arizona and Amelia Island.
Nurse is a painting by American pop art painter Roy Lichtenstein made in 1964.
The "Dragons" armchair is a piece of furniture designed by the Irish architect and designer Eileen Gray between 1917 and 1919. "Dragons" armchair sold for €21,905,000 in 2009, establishing a new record for a piece of 20th century decorative art.