An Impressive Week for UK Auctions.

Monday 29th June 2015 - Cara Bentham

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An Impressive Week for UK Auctions.

It was a great week for UK auctions last week with lots that far exceeded expectation. We’d like to share our top picks from some of the stand-out sales of the week...

The most interesting sale of the week...

A section of pavement in Islington, North London, fetched an astonishing £125,000 in an auction at Savills on Monday. The 560 sq feet of high street, owned by a property company since 1968, obliterated its reserve of £4,000. It is, as yet, unclear what the buyer will do with their unusual purchase which was described by the auctioneer as “with potential”. The patch is located near the market stalls, shops and cafes of Camden Passage, arousing speculation that it might be used for commercial purposes of a similar nature. However, it could simply be kept as an investment; property prices in Islington have risen sharply in recent times, to an average of £670,000! This could be a very clever investment indeed for the unknown buyer.

The most eye-wateringly expensive buy of the week...

At Sotheby’s in London, on Wednesday, a Gustav Klimt portrait fetched a colossal £24.8 million pounds. After a ten minute bidding war, Klimt’s 1902 portrait of a young woman more than doubled its lowest estimate of £12 million, becoming the highest priced item of an evening in which sales topped £178.6 million. There were 51 lots on offer in Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern art, 10 of which sold for more than 10 million pounds. Commentators note that this indicates the strength in the market at the moment for works such as these. The Sotheby’s auction far exceeded the £71.88 million taken by its rival; Christie’s auction of Impressionist and Modernist works the previous evening and was the second highest grossing London auction ever.

And finally.... a piece of music history...

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin’s first ever acoustic guitar was sold at an auction at Bonhams in London on Wednesday for £18,750. The Tatay guitar, played on Coldplay’s debut album Parachutes which features one of Coldplay’s most renowned songs, Yellow, more than doubled its estimate of £7-9,000.  
The musician bought the guitar in a shop in his hometown of Exeter, Devon. He took it with him to University College London in 1996, where the band was formed. This piece of Coldplay history, used in the composition of many of the bands earliest songs, was sold with a tatty black case with The Coldplay painted at one end.

Source: Images: Two employees of Sotheby’s auction house pose by Klimt’s Portrait of Gertrud Loew. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Chris Martin Guitar BBC News