Hammer Prices and Museum Purchases

The year’s first international auction has just finished after two busy weeks in the old and atmospheric saleroom in Bredgade. Approximately 1,100 auction lots went under the hammer, and the auction resulted in several million kroner sales and remarkable museum purchases.

Artwork from Skagen and Italy

The auction’s most impressive hammer price was DKK 4.3 million (€ 754,000 including buyer’s premium) for a magnificent study for P.S. Krøyer’s famous masterpiece ”Sankt Hansblus på Skagen strand” (Midsummer Eve Bonfire at Skagen Beach). Several of Danish art history’s grand old men achieved million kroner hammer prices at the auction, including two Italian motifs by the Danish Golden Age artists C.W. Eckersberg and Martinus Rørbye. The former’s ”Castel St. Angelo” went for DKK 1.5 million (€ 260,000 including buyer’s premium) to the art museum ARoS, located in Aarhus, while the hammer price for Rørbye’s "Loggia på Procida" settled on DKK 1 million (€ 175,000 including buyer’s premium). These prices are proof of the current popularity that the artist colony from Skagen and the Danish Golden Age painters are enjoying on the international art market.

Rococo Furniture and Vintage Wristwatches

Among the auction’s antiques, a Danish Rococo bureau cabinet from the 1700s, attributed to the cabinetmaker Mathias Ortmann, surprised with a sale of DKK 290,000 (€ 51,000 including buyer’s premium). A similar sense of surprise arose when five Italian Rococo chairs went for a hammer price of DKK 270,000 (€ 47,000 including buyer’s premium). As we turned our attention to the gentlemen’s wristwatches, five of these watches from different well-known brands were sold for more than DKK 100,000 – an Urban Jürgensen of platinum went for DKK 140,000 (€ 25,000 including buyer’s premium) and a Rolex Model Day-Date for DKK 120,000 (€ 21,000 including buyer’s premium). But the auction also proved that the increase in interest in older vintage wristwatches is genuine – an Heuer watch from the late 1960s was for instance sold for DKK 72,000 (€ 13,000 including buyer’s premium).

"I love Autumn Moon-Do you?"

The above is the title of the Chinese-American artist Walasse Ting’s colourful work with two of his characteristic women from 1978, which with a hammer price of DKK 620,000 (€ 110,000 including buyer’s premium) became the most expensive lot among the auction’s modern paintings. Asger Jorn nearly followed suit with DKK 500,000 (€ 87,500 including buyer’s premium) for his painting "St. Hans" (Midsummer) from the "Aarstiderne" (Seasons of Nature) series, while the "Nature Morte avec Pichet et Fruits" painting from 1912 by the French artist André Derain became the auction’s biggest surprise. The estimate was at a modest DKK 25,000-30,000 (€ 3,400-4,000), but when the hammer fell the bidding price had reached no less than DKK 280,000 (€49,000 including buyer’s premium).

Modern Artistic Crafts and Nordic Design

The auction ended with artistic crafts and Nordic design, and here one of the highest hammer prices was DKK 160,000 (€ 29,000 including buyer’s premium) for a stoneware vase in sprouting style by Axel Salto. The selection of design lots was very broad, and Thursday evening saw no less than 26 hammer prices above DKK 100,000, which is a testimony to the great strength of the market for the well-known Nordic classics. We also managed to test the PH value as we had one of the Danish designer Poul Henningsen’s first floor lamps from the late 1920s under the hammer and ended with a result of DKK 275,000 (€ 35,000 including buyer’s premium). A pair of Ib Kofod-Larsen’s "Elizabeth" chair also proved popular and was sold for DKK 230,000 (€ 40,000 including buyer’s premium). Twelve of Arne Jacobsen’s "Grand Prix" chairs from 1957 ended up being sold for DKK 260,000 (€ 45,000 including buyer’s premium), while one of Finn Juhl’s iconic "FJ 45" easy chairs, which has been owned by the artist Egill Jacobsen, made it to DKK 200,000 (€ 35,000 including buyer’s premium). 

New Works of Art for the Museums

It was not just the art museum ARoS who managed to bring home a new piece for their collection. Several other museums were represented at the auction – the Nationalmuseet in Stockholm bought Martinus Rørbye’s painting "En gammel Söemand siddende paa en Kanon" (An Old Sailor Sitting on a Canon) from 1826 and the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen bought C.A. Jensen’s portrait of professor N.C.L. Abrahams and his mother from the mid-1830s. At the Johannes Larsen Museum in Kerteminde the focus was on the Funen painter Fritz Syberg’s depiction of the wife Anna Syberg from 1910, while Julius Exner’s pretty girl from Store Magleby found a home in the proper surroundings at Museum Amager.

We update our list of museum purchases continuously. Follow it here.