Christies hammered down the highest price of the spring antiquities season today with the $1.8-million sale of a beautiful white marble "Stargazer" type idol originally from Anatolia, Turkey. The idol is less than 8-inches in length and dates to the Chalcolithic Period, circa 3300-2500 BC.
At $1.8-million, the sale was more than double the previous record for these extremely rare idols. Only about 15 complete examples are known.
Early Bronze Age idols remain one of the areas of strongest interest to collectors inside and outside the antiquities market. It is often remarked by first-time modern viewers of these superb idols that they are 'just like Brancusi,' but it is really the other way around: it is well-known that ancient art exerted a strong influence on these artists, since ancient idols were already on view in European museums or in private collections. Picasso owned a Cycladic idol and is known to have remarked that it was 'better than Brancusi.'
Just six months ago, one of the largest selections of Early Bronze Age idols to come to market in over a decade (a group of 10 Anatolian and closely-related Cycladic Greek idols) were sold in New York for an approximate total of more than $1.8-million, proving that the appetite for these miniature works of art continues to grow.
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