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Article: Market review: two auction records were set for a sculpture, and the only early copy of Magna Carta in private hands was bought for the National Archives in Washington.(THE ART MARKET: NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PREVIEWS FOR COLLECTORS)(United States)
- Article from:
- Apollo
- Article date:
- February 1, 2008
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Apollo Magazine Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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December was a month of unexpected successes. While it could not be doubted that the Guennol Lioness--a diminutive yet powerful 5,000 year-old limestone figurine from ancient Mesopotamia illustrated in the December APOLLO--would make a packet, no one predicted that she would fetch quite as much as $57.2m at Sotheby's antiquities sale in New York on 5 December. Five bidders jumped into the fray; the victor, an English agent, declined to reveal for whom he was buying. It was cheering that, for once, a huge price was matched by a real masterpiece. Hardly surprisingly, the sale set new auction records for both an antiquity and any sculpture sold at ...