November 9, The price record for a Brancusi masterpiece was set up in 2005 when “Bird in Space” was sold for USD 27.5 M

A sculpture by Constantin Brancusi was sold for USD 1.69 M at a New York auction by Sotheby’s Tuesday evening. More than 80 paintings and sculptures were up for the auction block. Among them “Tete Apollinaire” or “Tete”, a 40-cm tall plaster sculpture was sold for what was held as the ceiling of its estimated value. The auctioning started from USD 1.2 M.

According to the auction catalogue, originally, Brancusi carved the sculpture into stone in 1908, the year when the artist also made the first version of the “Kiss”, during a creative period in which his style became more synthetic, characterised by prolonged form and smooth contours. The stone version got lost, but Brancusi then made a few plaster copies of the original. He gave the first such copy to his friend, the famous French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, in 1912. The work was later on part of several private collections until it was put up for auction for the first time in 2000, when it fetched USD 1,050,750. The other two versions, which are different from that given to Apollinaire, are part of the collection of the Paris Museum of Modern Art.

“Bird in Space” is the most expensive of Brancusi’s works. The sculpture was sold for USD 27.5 M at a Sotheby’s auction in 2005. The auction on Tuesday evening gathered 85 paintings and sculptures by impressionist artists, with sales topping USD 230 M. The priciest piece of work up for auction was an oil painting by Paul Cezanne – “Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre”, which got USD 36.97 M The rival auction house, Christie’s, scheduled an auction of its own yesterday evening, the value of the works up for sale exceeding USD 300 M. ( Source: Nine O’Clock)