Julius Baumann
12 September 2008
Johannesburg — AUCTION house Bonham's has asserted London's control over the South African art market, selling a Pierneef painting, The Baobab Tree, for a record £826000 on Wednesday evening.
The hammer price, which includes a buyer's premium, smashed the previous record for a painting by a South African master.
Last year, Irma Stern's Congolese Woman sold for £569300 on one of Christie's London sales.
An increasing number of South Africans are electing to sell their work in London. This year Bonham's two South African sales have fetched more than £13m.
Giles Peppiatt, head of South African Art at Bonham's, said that the high prices fetched on the South African sales had encouraged many more South Africans to sell in London.
"The South African Heritage Resources Agency see me as some kind of cultural rapist but the truth is that the high prices we achieve here lifts the entire market."
Over the past few years Peppiatt has travelled throughout the world searching for South African works for Bonham's twice-yearly sales and has worked hard to grow the market for South African Art.
Peppiatt said that while South Africans made up the bulk of buyers, interest in South African masters had grown tremendously.
"On the January sale it was a British buyer who bought the top lots and this time we had a fair amount of Russian buyers," said Peppiatt.
The Baobab Tree, which had a presale estimate of £200000- £300000, was presented by the artist to the South African High Commissioner to Britain in the 1930s, Charles te Water, as a gift after he visited Pierneef's studio. It was later exhibited at London's Tate Gallery in 1948 and eventually found its way back to SA.
The work was sold by the Te Water family about 25 years ago to a South African collector living in the US, who put it on sale at Bonham's.
The Bonham's sale also included the strongest collection of Irma Stern yet seen in London, with 38 paintings. The majority of works by Stern beat their presale estimates. Malay Lady in Green sold for £389000, Still Life of Gladioli and a Musical Instrument, £356000; and Two Young Congolese Girls attracted £333000.
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