Brooke Astor Auction @ Sotheby's

Source: Sotheby's

Here's a fun find from the Sotheby's catalog for the September 24th & 25th auction of items from Brooke Astor's estate, there are 900 lots being offered in four sessions over two days.

It is a carved rock crystal dachshund on a carved quartz pillow with gold tassels! The estimate is $4,000-6,000, I'm sure it will go for much more. It is really charming & unique! There are a few other adorable & original items as well as a few "reasonably" priced items (relatively speaking!) You can check out the entire catalogue online.





  

Source: The Daily Truffle

I liked the dachshund because my dog, Bacon, is a dachshund mix. Mrs. Astor had two dachshunds named Boysie & Girlsie. What's your favorite item & why?

You can also register to bid online if you can't make it to NYC or to the Sotheby's auction house on York Ave (btw. 71st & 72nd St.)

Good luck!

ABG

Are you a Dog or a Rabbit?

There's a great exhibit by the artist Ai Wei Wei  in the fountain in front of the Plaza, it is made up of 12 amazingly detailed bronze sculptures of the heads of animals. They represent the animals in the Chinese zodiac

Click Photo to Enlarge
Find the year of your birth
That is your animal

 Did you notice someone has written Free Wei Wei on the sign? 

See link to read about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei




Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram

 

Rat, Ox, Tiger




I'm a ram, what are you?

 


Monkey, Rooster, Dog & Pig.

I like the dog best, what about you?


Up now through July 15, 2011




All photos of Zodiac Animals by ABG.

Rooms with a View

Current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774–1840)
Woman at the Window, 1822
Oil on canvas; 17 3/4 x 12 7/8 in. (45 x 32.7 cm)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie


By Sabine Rewald
“Everything at a distance turns into poetry: distant mountains, distant people, distant events: all becomes Romantic.” With these words, the German poet Novalis anticipated the appeal of one of richest motifs in the visual arts: the open window. Beginning with two sepia drawings by Caspar David Friedrich, images of windows—with or without human figures, starkly bare or draped with billowing fabric—filled up artists’ sketchbooks and portfolios and resonated through the art academies and annual exhibitions of Germany, Denmark, France, Russia, and the other northern countries.
In contrast to examples from earlier centuries, such as the celebrated works of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, the early nineteenth-century pictures usually show the windows straight on, with views seen through them—pastoral and alpine views, views of sea and sky or moon and clouds, and urban views of rooftops, steeples, shipyards, or the skyline of Rome, where so many northern artists went to complete their studies. Sabine Rewald’s informative and perceptive texts set these works in the context of their creators’ lives and careers, apartments and studios, families and professional circles. Following the motif from Friedrich’s sepia drawings in the early 1800s through the flowering of Romanticism to the midcentury emergence of Realism in the works of Adolph Menzel, Rewald provides a much-needed perspective on this important period in Europe even as the works themselves, gathered together here for the first time, offer pure visual pleasure.