Daniel Katz, a London dealer, for example, filled a wall of his booth with 30 intricately carved plaster statuettes (1831-44) whimsically depicting musicians and other famous personalities in the arts. Made by Jean-Pierre Dantan (or Dantan the Younger), a French sculptor who was known for his amusing caricatures, he captured the likenesses of Paganini and Berlioz, Strauss and Liszt. “It’s a Who’s Who in the world of Paris in the 1830s,” Mr. Katz said. Despite the $1 million asking price, the suite of statuettes sold to an unidentified American collector in the first 24 hours of the fair’s opening.
Word of the most alluring works spread quickly. Crowds could be seen gasping when pearls began to drop from the mouths of dragons surrounding a fantastical neoclassical clock once belonging to Prince Charles Alexander, governor general of the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium), for sale at Pelham, the London gallery. Alan Rubin, Pelham’s founder, said the $2.5 million gilt metal, bronze and silver clock had not been displayed in public in 100 years.
The section devoted to modern and contemporary art keeps changing. Last year a number of heavy hitters like Acquavella Galleries of New York and Leslie Waddington of London dropped out. Collectors could be heard grumbling that the offerings were not as strong as they have been, but there were some new dealers, like L&M Arts of New York, which was offering a Giacometti painting.
Although it has been just over a month ago since “Walking Man I,” Giacometti’s six-foot-tall sculpture of a pencil-thin figure, became the world’s most expensive work ever sold at auction (fetching $104.3 million at Sotheby’s in London), prices for his works are already escalating. L&M Arts bought its Giacometti, “Portrait of Maurice Lefebvre-Foinet” (1964-65), depicting the noted Parisian art supply shop owner, at Christie’s in Paris in December for $3.3 million. After cleaning, it was being offered at around $6 million.
Landau Fine Art from Montreal was showing “Three Walking Men,” a sculpture that Giacometti conceived in 1948. The gallery bought it at Christie’s in New York two years ago for $11.5 million. Landau had it at the fair last year priced at $19 million; this year it was $25 million. “Everyone expected us to raise the price,” said Alice Landau, who runs the gallery with her husband, Robert. “The market has changed.”
