VIENNA, AUSTRIA.- Less than a year ago the Dorotheum, rich in tradition, was taken over by a group of young Austrian entrepreneurs. Since then the Dorotheum, an Imperial foundation that had been state-owned for centuries, has been privately controlled. Martin Böhm, the new Managing Director in charge of the auction business, runs the institution, which has a history of almost 300 years, with a great deal of personal commitment. And he does so very successfully, as is confirmed by the business development of 2002.
In the auction sector, the house is expected to reach a new record high for 2002. Not only will budget forecasts be surpassed by far: also the excellent results of last year, which were the best ones ever achieved in this business sector, will be outperformed over again. Thus, the Dorotheum will be able to strengthen its position among the world’s leading auction houses even further
The year 2002 particularly shows a growing interest in the field of Modern and Contemporary Art. While the Dorotheum had obtained a huge success in this field in May, it managed to outdo its previous record results clearly in its November auction. Walde, Boeckl, Lassnig, and Weiler reached top prices, but also international Modern Art was much in demand, above all with works by Vlaminck, Gnoli, Poliakoff, and Immendorf. It is a primary concern of Managing Director Martin Böhm to further expand in this sector, which has even now attracted an increasingly young and new clientele for the Dorotheum. Focus is to be put on the field of international Modern Art. In order to intensify international contacts, which are already strong anyway, Franz von Rassler was engaged as a special representative for international Modern Art.
Old Masters is going to remain the Dorotheum’s most successful department as far as sales figures are concerned, and it will continue to stabilize its No. 1 position in Continental Europe with extremely satisfactory annual results and countless top prices. Among the highlights were a pair of mythological paintings by Johann Georg Platzer for Euro 180,000, an extraordinarily early copy of the Mona Lisa dating from the 17th century, which went to a Florida-based collector for Euro 149,000, as well as Govert Flinck’s portrait of Rembrandt’s wife Saskia, also sold to a buyer from the United States for Euro 145,000.
Also 19th-Century Painting saw a heavily growing number of international buyers, the favorite being Friedrich Gauermann’s “Driving Cattle on the Zellersee“ for Euro 168,000. Waldmüller, Buttersworth, Ender, Wisinger-Florian, Bommel, and Lauer yielded outstanding prices. A lot of attention was attracted by a collection of fantastic animal representations by Aloys Zötl, an outsider as an artist and already held in high regard with the Surrealists.
What customers seek in the first place is excellent quality and objects out of the ordinary. This trend is underlined by this year’s highest price, which was offered for a piece of furniture this time: a German buyer purchased an elaborate Louis XVI commode for Euro 288,000.
Record results were also yielded in the Design, Art Nouveau and Silver sales. Top prices were paid for Viennese silver as well as for silver objects coming from important European centers of gold- and silversmiths. For a Vienna Joseph I glass cooler of 1707 bids climbed to Euro 55,200.
