Music to Auctioneers
Collectors flocked like groupies to the recent auction of Seymour Stein‘s outstanding collection of Victorian paintings and 20th-century decorative arts. Stein, co-founder of Sire Records and the producer who launched the careers of Madonna, Talking Heads, The Pretenders and The Ramones among others, is a lifelong collector of art, objets d’art and antique furnishings.
Among the paintings sold were German artist Franz von Stuck’s “Inferno”, a terrifying Symbolist work that went for $428,000; British artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s “Catullus Reading His Poems at Lesbia’s House”, which sold for $176,000; and Austrian artist Kolomon Moser’s “Standing Nude with Blue Robe”, which brought $187,200.
The highlight of the 20th-century design offerings was a chromium-plated aluminum bed designed by Louis Sognot and Charlotte Alix, circa 1930/33, for the Maharaja of Indore‘s palace. It sold for $209,600. Two pairs of sconces made by Edgar Brandt with Daum Nancy, 1925, soared above their $20,000 to $30,000 estimates to sell for $120,000 and $90,000. The 251-lot collection, which fetched $4.3 million, is said to represent a fraction of Stein‘s holdings.
Stills of Stein’s cameo in the Deeper and Deeper Video
Article by Amy Page
Source: Art and Antiques
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