Pictures: Supplied
This year Strauss & Co are hosting an auction like no other, the virtual NORTH/SOUTH marquee sale. The four-day virtual auction is composed of eight curated sessions where anticipated luxury visual art, decorative art, furniture, jewellery and fine wine collectables are featured.
The highlights of the lots on sale include consignments from the Tasso Foundation Collection of important South African art - Irma Stern’s 1948 marine landscape The Grand Canal, Venice (estimate R5 – 7 million) and Stanley Pinker’s The Bathers (estimate R800 000 – 1 200 000), a magical homage to Paul Cézanne, represents the apogee of this quietly influential artist’s earlier painting style.
Collectors will also benefit from the depth of works available by, Walter Battiss, Robert Hodgins, Maggie Laubser, Esther Mahlangu, George Pemba, J.H. Pierneef and Alexis Preller. NORTH/SOUTH includes three sedulous early Pemba watercolours from the 1940s, as well as Assassination of Shaka Zulu (estimate R400 000 – 600 000), an oil work from 1973 that depicts an important historical event in allegorical terms.
An innovation of the NORTH/SOUTH sale is Interiors, a combined session devoted to art, furniture and decorative arts. Session highlights include J.H. Pierneef’s Still Life with Pelargoniums (estimate R300 000 – 400 000), a compelling detour into the still life genre by this master landscape painter, as well as two René Lalique Source de la Fontaine moulded glass figures from 1924.
Fine wine, a recent addition to the Strauss & Co auction portfolio, commenced the NORTH/SOUTH auction on Sunday. The session was devoted to a single-owner collection of the most hallowed wines of Burgundy and the northern Rhône, including lots from Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils, Domaine Comte Georges de Vogue and Domaine de la Romaneé-Conti.
The NORTH/SOUTH sale will be livestreamed to bidders from two sales venues in Cape Town (Brickfield Canvas, 35 Brickfield Road, Woodstock) and Johannesburg (89 Central Street, Houghton). Collectors wishing to attend the auction must confirm their attendance in advance and Covid-19 safety protocols apply throughout.
