Christie’s 5/9/2020

Art stories to feed the mind and soul — plus news on our updated calendar of online auctions and private sales



When Botticelli met SpongeBob SquarePants: why this KAWS tondo bridges 500 years of art



Monk, mentor, lover, friend: the man behind some of the best-loved sculptures of our time



The power of community: how many hands made light work of this Carrie Mae Weems banner



The succour of solitude: from Kahlo to Kusama, 10 artists who found strength in their isolation


More stories

Editor’s picks





Marc Chagall’s illustrations for Pantheon Books’ Four Tales from the Arabian Nights were his first foray into colour lithography. This set of 12 plates, numbered 68 from an edition of 90, includes images for The Ebony Horse and Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller’s Wife. The lithographs won the Graphic Prize at the 1948 Venice Biennale

Estimate: $80,000-120,000
until 14 May, Online






This skull of a Triceratops prorsus is between 65 and 68 million years old, and comes from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. Although it could reach nine metres in length, Triceratops was a herbivore, feeding on palm fronds. Its fearsome horns, almost a metre long, helped to defend it from predators such as Tyrannosaurus rex

Estimate: £150,000-250,000
until 21 May, Online






Edward Steichen took this Portrait of Natica Nast, the daughter of the publishing magnate Condé Nast, in 1917. Natica was a talented painter and writer who later married the noted cellist and music patron, Gerald Warburg. She died in Manhattan in 1987, aged 82

Estimate: $5,000-7,000
until 13 May, Online






In 1946 Pablo Picasso adopted an injured owl, which he named Ubu. ‘We put him in the kitchen with the canaries, the pigeons and the turtle doves,’ wrote the artist’s lover, Françoise Gilot. ‘He smelled awful.’ The artist frequently depicted owls in his art: this Chouette aux taches vase is from an edition of 300

Estimate: $6,000-8,000
Until 20 May, Online










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KAWS (b. 1974), NYT, 2014. Acrylic on canvas. Diameter: 96 in (243.8 cm). Offered for private sale at Christie’s // Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), Méditation, petit modèle, 1887. Bronze with green patina. Estimate: €400,000-600,000. Offered in Art Impressionniste et Moderne on 4 June 2020 at Christie’s in Paris; Portrait of Auguste Rodin by Pyotr Ivanovich Shumov, between 1912 and 1917. Photo: © Fine Art Images / Bridgeman Images // Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953), Change Requires 2020 Vision, 2018 and executed in 2020. Double-sided sewn felt. Estimate: $20,000-30,000. Offered in