It was a buyer’s market at the Christie’s Dubai sale last week. While within the auction estimate, the evening brought in less than $5 million as compared to the $8.65 million made at the same sale a year ago. The most expensive lot was Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli‘s “The Wall and the Script” (pictured above), which sold for $218,500 including buyer’s premium. In last year’s sale, a piece by the same artist sold for just under $3 million. Check out the complete sale results at the Christie’s site here and read the Reuters article giving an overview of the auction here.
Also, today Sotheby’s had its corporate credit rating cut into “junk” territory by Standard & Poor’s, with an analyst from the agency stating the auction house is “likely to breach a financial covenant in the near term.” That article, also from Reuters, is here.
And I don’t want to leave you on a depressing note, so here‘s a slideshow from The New York Times showing the newly renovated American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that opens on May 19th. Beautiful! I’m not sure when they took those pictures…it’s been raining non-stop in New York for days!
