عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Culture

Van Gogh Painting Falls Short of Expectations in Hong Kong Auction

A visitor looks closely at 'Les canots amarres' by Vincent van Gogh at Christie's new Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. Peter PARKS / AFP
A visitor looks closely at 'Les canots amarres' by Vincent van Gogh at Christie's new Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. Peter PARKS / AFP
TT
TT

Van Gogh Painting Falls Short of Expectations in Hong Kong Auction

A visitor looks closely at 'Les canots amarres' by Vincent van Gogh at Christie's new Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. Peter PARKS / AFP
A visitor looks closely at 'Les canots amarres' by Vincent van Gogh at Christie's new Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. Peter PARKS / AFP

A Vincent van Gogh painting displaying the artist's shift from dark realism to vibrant impressionism sold for US$32.2 million at a Hong Kong auction on Thursday, falling short of expectations that it would fetch a record-breaking price.
"Les canots amarres" -- or "the moored boats" -- was the centerpiece of an inaugural evening sale held to celebrate the opening of auction house Christie's new Asia Pacific headquarters.
According to Christie's, it was expected to fetch HK$230-380 million (US$30-50 million) on the auction floor, AFP reported.
If bidding had reached the higher end of the estimated value, it could have surpassed Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Warrior" -- which went for HK$323.6 million in 2021 -- as the most expensive Western painting sold in Asia.

But the hammer of auctioneer Adrien Meyer fell Thursday at HK$250 million.
Cristian Albu, deputy chairman and head of 20th/21st century art at Christie's Asia Pacific, said the price was the "record of a Van Gogh in Asia.”
The auction house was "cautious" with its lineup on Thursday in hopes of boosting market confidence, added Ada Tsui, head of evening sale and specialist for 20th/21st century art.
Owned by the Italian royal family of Bourbon Two Sicilies, the Van Gogh painting is "the most important painting by the artist ever to be offered in Asia,” Christie's said in its introduction.
"'Les canots amarres' marks a vital stepping stone in his career," it said.
The painting is one of about 40 works Van Gogh developed around the scenic French town of Asnieres, a boating hub on the outskirts of Paris, during the summer of 1887.
 

Most Viewed

 
 
Culture

Painting that Shocked German Society Finally Returns to Berlin

Mors Imperator (Death is the Ruler) is seen as a powerful allegory of death and power, and was misinterpreted in the late 19th century (the Alte Nationalgalerie museum)
Mors Imperator (Death is the Ruler) is seen as a powerful allegory of death and power, and was misinterpreted in the late 19th century (the Alte Nationalgalerie museum)
TT
TT

Painting that Shocked German Society Finally Returns to Berlin

Mors Imperator (Death is the Ruler) is seen as a powerful allegory of death and power, and was misinterpreted in the late 19th century (the Alte Nationalgalerie museum)
Mors Imperator (Death is the Ruler) is seen as a powerful allegory of death and power, and was misinterpreted in the late 19th century (the Alte Nationalgalerie museum)

More than 100 years after Mors Imperator caused a scandal in 1887 amid fears it mocked the German kaiser, the painting is being displayed in a state museum in Berlin, according to The Guardian.

Wrapped in a cloak with ermine fur and wearing a jagged iron crown, a hulking skeleton rests one foot on a globe and knocks over a royal throne with a dramatic flick of its ivory wrist.

Entitled Mors Imperator (“Death is the Ruler”), the German artist Hermione von Preuschen’s 1887 symbolical painting was meant to express the transience of fame and power.

But authorities feared the picture could be seen as mocking the aging German Emperor Wilhelm I, who then had recently turned 90, and refused to accept its submission to the Berlin Academy of the Arts’ annual exhibition that year.

More than 100 years after the painting’s rejection and subsequent display in the 19th-century equivalent of a pop-up gallery caused a stir in Berlin society, Mors Imperator is returning to the German capital.

From Sunday until mid-November, the 2.5-meter by 1.3-meter painting will be shown in a state institution at last, at the Alte Nationalgalerie museum.

The scandal around von Preuschen’s work illustrates how prone single-ruler autocracies can be to paranoia about hidden meanings in art. According to the Berlin exhibition’s curator, an offense against the monarchy was neither what the artist intended nor how it was perceived by its supposed target.

Born in Darmstadt in 1854, von Preuschen was a poet, world traveler and painter known for her large-scale and flamboyant historical still life pictures. At the 1896 International Women’s Congress in Berlin she gave an impassioned speech calling for women to be allowed education at artistic academies.

“Hermione von Preuschen was bold, not short of self-belief, and an early advocate of female emancipation,” said Birgit Verwiebe, an art historian. “But she was not a political person, and there is no record of her having any anti-monarchical instincts. After all, she came from nobility herself.”

Culture

Saudi Arabia: DGDA Held Eid Cultural Program Across Diriyah

Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) held a three-day festive program. SPA
Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) held a three-day festive program. SPA
TT
TT

Saudi Arabia: DGDA Held Eid Cultural Program Across Diriyah

Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) held a three-day festive program. SPA
Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) held a three-day festive program. SPA

The Diriyah Gate Development Authority (DGDA) held a three-day festive program celebrating Eid Al-Fitr from Friday to Sunday for residents and visitors of all ages.

The historic At Turaif District in Diriyah served as a central hub, featuring the Saudi Ardah dance at Salwa Palace and the “Hal Al-Qusoor” program, which uses interactive storytelling to highlight the history of the First Saudi State.

Festivities extended to Diriyah’s other districts, featuring traditional celebrations, folk performances, and family-friendly entertainment.

Children participated in specialized workshops focused on storytelling and creative writing, while family activities also highlighted Najdi heritage through play.

The programs focused on craftsmanship, offering workshops in arts and traditional trades such as accessory design, leather engraving, and the creation of custom oud mixtures, soap, and prayer beads.

These initiatives strengthen Diriyah’s position as a leading global cultural destination and align with Saudi Vision 2030 by enhancing the quality of life.

Culture

Matisse’s Last Years Cut Out -- But Not Pasted -- At Paris Expo

Artwork entitled "Autoportrait au chapeau de paille" by French artist Henri Matisse on display during the exhibition "Matisse 1941-1954" at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, 19 March 2026. (EPA)
Artwork entitled "Autoportrait au chapeau de paille" by French artist Henri Matisse on display during the exhibition "Matisse 1941-1954" at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, 19 March 2026. (EPA)
TT
TT

Matisse’s Last Years Cut Out -- But Not Pasted -- At Paris Expo

Artwork entitled "Autoportrait au chapeau de paille" by French artist Henri Matisse on display during the exhibition "Matisse 1941-1954" at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, 19 March 2026. (EPA)
Artwork entitled "Autoportrait au chapeau de paille" by French artist Henri Matisse on display during the exhibition "Matisse 1941-1954" at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, 19 March 2026. (EPA)

The final years of Henri Matisse's artistic life, marked by the Nazi occupation of France and a brush with death and surgery, will light up a twilight retrospective opening next week.

From Tuesday, the Grand Palais in Paris will see a reunion of seminal series by the late French master, such as "Blue Nudes", "Jazz" or the monumental "La Gerbe" (The Sheaf), revealing the ageing painter's prolific work ethic despite his health woes.

The exhibition brings together 320 works, from media as varied as paintings, sketches, gouache cut-outs, textiles and stained glass, all drafted by the artist in the run-up to his death in 1954 at the age of 84.

Titled "Matisse 1941-1954", it chronicles a time when the Nazis considered Matisse a "degenerate" artist, during which he confessed to a friend that he came within a "whisker of death" after going under the surgeon's knife in 1941.

"At that time, he was therefore an elderly man, partially disabled and struggling to stand upright," said Claudine Grammont, the curator of the exhibition and a former director of the Matisse Museum in Nice.

Yet despite those woes, Matisse was about to embark on "the most prolific moment of his career", Grammont added.

"It's truly his apotheosis, meaning that the artist reaches a state of nonchalance, of detachment... in short, a moment of grace."

Grammont, who also heads the graphic art department at the French capital's famed Pompidou museum, bristles at the long-standing accusation that Matisse abandoned the art of painting for cut-outs in his old age.

"It has often been said, wrongly, that during this period Matisse stopped painting and did nothing but cut-out gouaches.

"Well, no: Matisse painted 75 paintings between 1941 and 1954."

Nonetheless, Matisse's supposed dotage was marked by an outbreak of inspiration.

"In 1950 alone, 40 works were produced. That's a lot for an 80-year-old man," Grammont said.

- 'Intimacy' -

Visitors will have until July 26 to catch the late Matisse's essential works, including the best part of his ornamentation for the Vence Chapel in southeastern France and its dozen paintings.

It also brings together four of his now-ubiquitous "Blue Nudes", which have become a modern cultural touchstone, visible on tourist-shop T-shirts and the walls of student bedsits alike, even despite criticism of the artist's supposed colonialism from his time in Tahiti.

Matisse would often work on pieces such as 1953's "La Gerbe", with its splash of vividly colored spiky cut-outs, at night, "because he was an insomniac", Grammont said.

For the curator, Matisse significantly altered his method in his final years, developing "a new iconographic vocabulary" through the cut-out to give his art a monumental scope.

Hence an exhibition on two floors, with spacious rooms capable of housing these large gouache cut-outs once pinned to the walls of his studio.

"What we wanted to recreate in the exhibition is this intimacy within the atelier," Grammont said.

"It's about being able to enter Matisse's studio and find yourself face to face with the artworks."