LONDON (Reuters) - An original drawing of A.A. Milne’s popular children’s characters Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger and Piglet fetched $50,000 at auction on Tuesday.

The oval pencil sketch by E.H. Shepard, one of children’s literature’s most famous illustrators, shows Pooh dipping his paw into a pot of honey while sitting at a table as Piglet and Tigger look on.

Auctioneer Bonhams said the successful telephone bidder was from Germany and bought the picture for his wife, a long-time Pooh fan.

On the same day, Sotheby’s announced it was offering what it called the finest single collection of Shepard’s original drawings for the Pooh books to be sold at auction.

The illustrations, from the collections of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone, are among the most recognizable, including “He went on tracking, and Piglet … ran after him” depicting Pooh and Piglet turning to each other as they walk away.

It is expected to fetch 40-60,000 pounds.

Also on offer is “Bump, bump, bump - going up the stairs” featuring Christopher Robin dragging his bear by the leg up the stairs beside him. It is valued at 50-70,000 pounds.

The drawing on sale at Bonhams was a larger version of an illustration entitled “Tiggers don’t like honey” which appeared in Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner,” one of four books he wrote about the bear in the 1920s.

Other works by Shepard on sale at Bonhams included a first sketch for Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” depicting Rat and Mole lounging with a picnic on the riverbank.

It appeared in the published book with the caption: “Now pitch in, old fellow! and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey” and fetched 7,440 pounds, including premium.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White and Michael Holden)

LONDON (Reuters) - Christie’s post-war and contemporary art auction fell far short of pre-sale expectations on Sunday, as the financial crisis continued to erode confidence in a sector which until recently was hitting record highs.

The sale, held in October to coincide with the huge Frieze Art Fair in London, raised 32 million pounds ($55 million), a sum that includes buyers’ premium of 12 percent for the top lots. Of the 47 lots on offer, 26 were sold.

That compared with pre-auction expectations of between 58 and 76 million pounds, not including premium.

The result comes two days after rival auction house Sotheby’s raised 22 million pounds ($38 million) at its equivalent sale, below pre-sale estimates ranging from 31-43 million pounds.

Like Sotheby’s before it, Christie’s said its results were positive despite failing to get close to the low estimate.

“We are pleased with the results of this evening’s auction, where eight out of the top 10 works were acquired by private collectors,” said Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s in London.

“Given the economic backdrop of the last several weeks where other markets have frozen, the art market continues with liquidity and active buyer participation albeit at different levels,” she added.

The results of the auctions are likely to cause jitters among auctioneers, collectors and sellers, with both Christie’s and Sotheby’s staging key November sales in New York.

The art market boom has been fueled partly by growing interest from super-rich buyers in Russia, the Middle East and the Far East.

Top-end works have also been seen as a relatively safe bet compared with turbulence gripping other investments.

But the severity of falls in values of equities, oil, property and other assets has left art vulnerable to a significant downward correction, experts have warned.

The top lot at Christie’s was a 1963 work by painter and sculptor Lucio Fontana, which went under the hammer for 9.0 million pounds versus an estimate of 12 million pounds.

One of only two oil portraits of Francis Bacon painted by Lucian Freud fetched 5.4 million pounds, toward the lower end of the pre-sale estimate range.

The 85-year-old Freud’s only other cameo of his fellow artist Bacon, painted in 1952, was stolen from a show in Berlin in 1988.

I recently read an article in ARTnews magazine about the estimated yearly art market value. They claim that last year $25 billion was spent worldwide on art. The article however goes on to say that it could be as high as $35 billion, but they don’t seem to take into account sales other than by galleries and auction houses. This leaves out a huge market. Last year I bought about 15 pieces and only 1 of them was from a gallery, the rest were through the artists websites or shops like etsy. The fact that ARTnews didn’t take any of this into account seemed odd to me.

The article did get me thinking about the high values of some pieces and the high prices of many recent sales. There aren’t that many artists that can expect to sell their works for ridiculous amounts of money. Many artists just barely get by, only dreaming of the day someone is willing to pay high prices for their works allowing them to live a luxurious lifestyle. Unfortunately this usually only happens after the artist is dead.

Maybe there is something to learn from the works that are currently selling for more than the GDP of some small countries. With that I decided to take a look at the 10 highest selling pieces of all time. I am listing these in order of lowest to highest and the sale prices have all been adjusted for inflation.

10. Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. He is most well known for his “Golden Phase” where many of his paintings utilized gold leaf. One of his more famous pieces from this time is “The Kiss”

Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted by Klimt in 1912 and sold in 2006 for $89.1 million ($87.9 million before inflation). Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who was a wealthy industrialist who sponsored the arts and supported Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model to be painted twice by Klimt; she also appeared in the much more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I which is number 3 in this list.

8. Dora Maar au Chat by Pablo Picasso

Picasso is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement with fellow artist Georges Braque. I don’t think there is anyone alive who isn’t familiar with Picasso.

This painting was one of many portraits of Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso over their nearly decade-long relationship. Picasso fell in love with the 29-year old Maar at the age of 55 and soon began living with her. This painting was done during the year 1941, when the Nazis were occupying France. It sold for $97 million ($95.2 million before inflation) in 2006 through Sotheby’s in NY.

6. Garçon à la pipe by Picasso

Another painting by Picasso is on this list at number 6. It sold for $113.4 million ($104.2 million before inflation) and was estimated to go for around $70 million.

Owned by the estate of John Hay Whitney, on May 5, 2004 it sold for $US104.1 million at an auction in Sotheby’s NY. Many art critics have said it sold for so much because of the artists name, as opposed to having any significant historical importance. The reasoning behind the high sale price is irrelevant however.

4. Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh’s 3rd painting on this list is one of two similar portraits of Dr. Gachet. This is for the first of 2 similar paintings of Dr. Gachet. Vincent’s brother, Theo van Gogh, thought that Gachet’s background and sensitivity toward artists would make him an ideal doctor for Vincent during his recovery. Very soon after he began seeing Gachet, however, Vincent began to doubt the doctor’s usefulness and was quoted as saying he was“ sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much . . . . ”

It sold for $129.7 million ($82.5 million before inflation) to the same man who bought Renoir’s Moulin de la Galette in 1990, but has since been sold again to an unknown party. The story of the painting is a pretty interesting one.

“The original version of this painting was sold by van Gogh’s sister-in-law for 300 francs in 1897. Subsequently it was sold respectively to Paul Cassirer (1904), Kessler (1904), and Druet (1910). In 1911 the painting was acquired by the Städel (Städtische Galerie) in Frankfurt, Germany and hung there until 1933, when the painting was put in a hidden room. In 1937, it was confiscated by the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, an arm of the Nazi government that sought to rid pre-war Germany of so-called degenerate art. It came into the possession of Hermann Göring, who quickly sold it to a dealer in Amsterdam. The dealer in turn sold it to a collector, Siegfried Kramarsky, who brought it with him, when he fled to New York, where the work was often lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kramarsky’s family put the painting up for auction in 1990. The painting became famous on May 15, 1990, when Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito paid US$82.5 million for it at auction in Christie’s New York, making it the most expensive painting in the world up to that time. Saito, the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Co. and then 75 years old, caused a scandal when he said he would have the Van Gogh painting cremated with him after his death. He later said, “What I really wanted to [express] was my wish to preserve the paintings forever.” Saito, his aides explained, was using a figure of speech, and his threatening to torch the masterpiece was just an expression of intense affection for it. Later he said he would consider giving the paintings to his government or a museum. After his death in 1996, the exact location and ownership of the portrait had been shrouded in mystery. In early 2007, however, reports surfaced that the painting had been sold a decade earlier by Saito or his estate to the Austrian-born investment fund manager Wolfgang Flöttl. Flöttl, in turn, had reportedly been forced by financial reversals to sell the painting to parties as yet unknown.

The second version of the portrait is in the possession of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.”

2. Woman III by Willem de Kooning

Woman III was sold by David Geffen to Steven A. Cohen in 2006 for $140.2 million ($137.5 before inflation) making it the 2nd most expensive painting ever sold.

“Woman III” comes with a rich history. Mr. Geffen acquired it in 1994 from a Tehran museum in a quiet trade with the help of Doris Ammann, a Zurich dealer, on the tarmac of the Vienna airport. In return, Iran obtained the remnants of a precious 16th-century painted manuscript detailing the ascension of Shah Tahmasp of Persia to the throne.

Because Mr. Cohen is known as a supporter of both the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum, his purchase is likely to stir speculation about whether “Woman III” will one day go to a museum.”

With some of these latest high priced art sales you would never know the global economy was in a recession.

Sylvette, a piece by Picasso sold for an Australian record at A$ 6.9 million in Sydney.

“Sylvette is the title of the portrait of the young woman with the ponytail painted by Pablo Picasso. The Spanish painter met Sylvette David, a woman who worked in a pottery not far from his studio in Vallauris, in spring 1953. The attraction, which a face like Sylvette’s had for Picasso’s sensuality, motivated him to paint. Sylvette’s portrait from May 2, 1954 is one of the last of a long serial.”

This sale broke the previous record of $2.04 million for a 4 meter wide piece by Brett Whiteley.

Australia has been experiencing a year-long boom in art sales, driven by cashed-up collectors involved in the country’s China-driven mining boom.

“Rodney Menzies, the chairman of Menzies Art Brands, bought the Picasso two years ago for $4,608,000 and had tipped strong overseas interest in the painting from Asia and Europe.”

Sources: ArtNewsBlog Reuters Wikipedia

The desk where Charles Dickens wrote “Great Expectations” and his final correspondence hours before his death fetched 433,250 pounds ($850,000) at auction on Wednesday, around seven times its pre-sale estimate.

The Irish entrepreneur who bought the furniture called the price “a bargain” for such a piece of literary history.

“It’s a part of Charles Dickens, so I’m delighted to be its owner,” Tom Higgins told Reuters by telephone after the sale. “I’ve been a huge Dickens fan for a long time. I actually think it’s worth a lot more than what I paid for it and expected it could have gone for as much as five million (pounds). I think it’s a bargain, really,” added Higgins, 49, who plans to be Ireland’s first space tourist.

Proceeds from the sale were going to Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London made it easier to part with the cash.

Christie’s sold the furniture as part of its valuable books and manuscripts sale in London, and the price includes the buyer’s premium.

The writing desk and chair from the study of Dickens’ Gad’s Hill residence near Rochester, Kent, was passed on by descent to Christopher Charles Dickens and his wife Jeanne-Marie Dickens.

She then donated them to Great Ormond Street, with which Dickens had a close association.

According to Christie’s, Dickens wrote “Great Expectations” and a number of other late novels and short stories at the mahogany writing desk.