Christie’s 243

Art stories to feed the mind and soul



‘They embraced the sublime’: thousands of unseen images of the NASA space programme



Why Joseph Severn painted this Keats portrait — 13 years after overseeing the poet’s death mask



‘A snapshot of the 20th century’: the evolution of abstraction charted in a single collection



How did two major Renaissance artists end up creating these drawings on the same sheet?



Why this detective fiction writer is credited with helping to bridge the cultures of East and West



‘Ingenuity, innovation and sustainability’: designers animating the Middle East


More stories

Editor’s picks





Aleksandra Exter was a set designer as well as an avant-garde painter, and her 1930s work Carnival in Venice gleams with theatricality. It was owned for decades by her friend Ihnno Ezratty, a Jewish industrialist whom she helped to hide from the Nazis in occupied Paris

Estimate: £250,000-350,000
23 November, London






In a pairing reminiscent of Venus and Mars, Boucheron created this enamel-and-diamond lipstick holder for Marie-Cécile Bonnefoy to match the ceremonial baton (offered in the same sale) that was presented to her husband, Alphonse Juin, when he was made a Marshal of France in 1952

Estimate: €2,000-3,000
24 November, Paris






Made by Farhad Moshiri for Go West, his 2017 retrospective at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Tranquility is an installation of knives embedded in a wall. Moshiri, a pacifist, began using knives in his art in 2008, and says he sees in these works ‘a battle between the forces of good and evil’

Estimate: £120,000-180,000
until 24 November, Online






A typically satirical work by Wim Delvoye, Installation of 3 Gas Cans and 18 Saw Blades presents what looks like a collection of Delft ceramics in an ornate armoire. A second glance confirms what the title makes plain, and the meticulously painted objects take on a different, slightly sinister guise

Estimate: €100,000-150,000
until 26 November, Online










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James Lovell, Sunset over the Earth, Gemini VII, Dec 4-18, 1965 / Adolph Gottlieb, Bastille Day, 1961 (detail). Offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale, featuring The Collection of Morton and Barbara Mandel, New York, 3 December 2020. Artwork: © Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2020 // Nada Debs, Star Shelf. Photo: Courtesy of Nada Debs / David/Nicolas, Constellation C040. Photo: Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt / Khaled El Mays (Lebanese, b. 1985), Large cabinet from the Palmea collection, 2018. Estimate: £6,000-8,000 / Ranya Sarakbi (Lebanese, b. 1973), Ouroboros, 2019-2020. Estimate: £120,000-180,000. Offered in Middle Eastern, Modern and Contemporary Art, 11-24 November 2020, Online

 

Love the gas cans and saw blades.