The Saunders Blog

It’s Awfully Nice to be Known by the Company we Keep

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Congratulations are definitely in order for Christie’s Fine Art Auction House in New York City.  Art history was made there on May 4^th when Pablo Picasso’s Nude Green Leaves, and Bust sold for $106,482,500.  No, that is not a typo; and yes, the frame was included.

The sale set a new world record for any work of art ever sold at auction.  A hushed silence fell over the packed saleroom during the nine minutes of bidding that involved eight clients.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was from the collection of Mrs. Sidney Brody, a stellar assemblage of Modern Art purchased primarily in the 1940′s and 50′s and kept in the family home since. Mrs. Brody, who died in November, was the wife of Sidney F. Brody, a Los Angeles real estate developer who died in 1983.

The Evening Sale portion of the Brody Collection became the highest total for a single-owner sale offered at Christie’s New York. The runaway success of Nude, Green Leaves and Bust pushed the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale total to $335,548,000.

Needless-to-say, the clientele that step across Christie’s magnificent triple-height threshold in New York’s Rockefeller Center represents a cross-section of the most sophisticated and deep-pocketed buyers of fine art, jewelry, antiquities—and properties—on the planet.  That would seem rather obvious, since one of their clients ponied-up more than $106 million for the Picasso masterpiece—and seven more were prepared to do the same, until they were outbid.

This should come as great news to clients of Michael Saunders & Company whose properties are in the Christie’s Great Estates marketing program.  Christie’s Fine Art Auction House, you see, is the only institution of its kind to wholly own and operate a worldwide network of top-tier real estate brokerages as an important service to its customers; and other equally capable homebuyers around the globe.

We are proud to be Christie’s exclusive affiliate in Southwest Florida.  If it’s true that you are known by the company you keep, we feel that our clients’ properties are in awfully good company.  Who knows, perhaps the new owner of Nude Green Leaves, and Bust would like a nice waterfront property suitable for showcasing their new acquisition.

To see the original article click here: http://www.christiesgreatestates.com/picasso1_may5_2010.htm

photo courtesy of www.christiesgreatestates.com