PARIS -- A French street artist's interpretation of the Mona Lisa made of 330 Rubik's Cubes sold for 480,200 euros ($520,680) on Sunday at a modern art auction in Paris, well above presale estimates of up to 150,000 euros, organizers Artcurial said.
The 2005 artwork by anonymous street artist Invader uses the plastic puzzles' squares to create a mosaic of the Mona Lisa and her famous smile in garish colours.
The sale coincided with the closure of a blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the nearby Louvre museum, the home of the real Mona Lisa. That show marked the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance master.
Invader is known for his mosaic tile works featuring pixelated versions of the 1978 Space Invaders video game characters, which "invade" cities around the world.
The Rubik Mona Lisa was created in 2005 and is the first in Invader's "Rubikcubism" series, in which he recreates well-known Old Master works.
Invader, who defines himself as an UFA, an Unidentified Free Artist, wears a mask and insists on his face being pixilated for his rare appearances on camera.
He has a large following of fans who use a Smartphone app, "Flash Invaders," to snap pictures of his mosaics if they’re authentically his, rack up points and compete with other players.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS -- An early landscape by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the art world's most sought-after painters, sold for 7.07 million euros ($8.27 million) at an auction in Paris on Monday.
Painted in 1882, "Fishing Net Menders in the Dunes" depicts peasant women working on the land under a cloudy sky, inspired by the countryside around The Hague, where Van Gogh passed a short but formative period.
The painting, the first Van Gogh to be auctioned in France for more than 20 years, had been valued at 3 million to 5 million euros. It was purchased by a buyer based in North America, auction house Artcurial said.
On average only two or three works by the Dutch impressionist appear on the international market each year, the auction house said.
While hardly cheap, the price comes nowhere near the record $450.3 million paid last November for "Salvator Mundi," Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century portrait of Christ, which is due to go on display in a new branch of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS - Luxury furniture auctioned off by the legendary Ritz hotel in Paris sold for 7.3 million euros ($9 million), a world record in the industry, auction house Artcurial said Saturday.
The Paris hotel, home for a while to Ernest Hemingway, Marcel Proust and Coco Chanel, sold off all 10,000 pieces of furniture and decor.
They included stools from the Hemingway Bar, a 19th-century bathtub, and sofas and a harp from the Proust Lounge.
The Ritz sale outperformed other hotels around the world, the auction house said.
In 2013 in Paris, Hotel de Crillon made 5.9 million euros from a furniture sale while Plaza Athenee made 1.4 million euros.
The 3,400 lots that were up for grabs were on sale between April 17 and 21.
Buyers bid on objects ranging from velvet security cordons and curtain ties, to rugs, bedframes and sets of bathrobes and slippers embroidered with the Ritz insignia.
Price estimates ran from 100 euros for a pair of tablecloths to 10,000 euros for a pair of nymph sculptures carrying bronze candelabras that used to decorate the lobby.
"The Ritz has excited a sudden passion, attracting buyers from all over the world," auctioneer Francois Tajan told AFP.
The Ritz decided to sell the pieces from its famous Place Vendome address when it reopened in June 2016 after four years of extensive renovations.
Owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed since 1979, the hotel had accumulated impressive quantities of objects since it was opened in 1898 by Cesar Ritz.
It has served as the backdrop to several key moments in French history.
The Nazis requisitioned it during World War II but had cleared out by the time Ernest Hemingway burst in with a group of Resistance fighters on August 25, 1944, gun in hand, to "personally liberate" it.
Realising he was too late Hemingway took to the bar where he is said to have run up a tab for 51 dry Martinis.
In 1997, tragedy befell the hotel when Britain's Princess Diana, who had been staying there, was killed in a car accident in a Paris tunnel while being pursued by paparazzi.
The hotel made global headlines again in January, when robbers armed with guns and hatchets ransacked jewellery shops on the ground floor, making off with over four million euros ($4.9 million) in gems and watches.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
