Echo Chiu

Will the whack job whose goes by the name "Echo Chiu" please stop sending us porno stories?


We put up art and art related stories for people to enjoy, its often time consuming but we do it because the world is filled with so many sub-par, ugly things that we believe that every blow and perfection for beauty counts......taking time out of the day to deal with your perversions isn't on the schedule.


Knock it off and go get help.


Thank you.  




....and its "Tit" for God's sakes, not "tid".


Report: Missing Cezanne worth $109M turns up in Serbia


Ho / REUTERS


"The Boy in the Red Vest," painted circa 1888, by Paul Cezanne


By Reuters


Police in Serbia believe they have recovered an Impressionist masterpiece by Paul Cezanne worth at least $109 million that was stolen at gunpoint in one of the world's biggest art heists four years ago, a police official said on Thursday.


"We believe the painting is Cezanne's 'Boy in a Red Waistcoat' and three suspects were detained in connection with that," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.


"Experts in Serbia and abroad are trying to ascertain whether the painting is an original. This painting is worth tens of millions of euros," the official added.


The canvas -- "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" -- was one of four paintings stolen from a Swiss art gallery in 2008 by a trio of masked robbers who burst in just before closing time and told staff to lay on the floor while they took what they wanted.


The paintings were reportedly worth an estimated $163 million at the time and the heist was the biggest art theft in Swiss history and one of the largest in the world. "The Boy in a Red Waistcoat" canvas was worth $110 million alone at the time.


The painting was stolen in 2008 from the Emil Georg Buehrle gallery in Zurich, a private collection founded by a World War II arms dealer and entrepreneur. The gallery could not be reached for comment on Thursday.



Two of the stolen canvasses, one by Claude Monet and the other by Vincent Van Gogh, were recovered days later abandoned in a car, but the other two -- the Cezanne and a painting by Edgar Degas -- have been missing for the last four years.


Cezanne's "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" is thought to have been painted around 1888 and depicts a boy in traditional Italian dress donning a red waistcoat, a blue handkerchief and a blue belt. Three other versions of the painting are in museums in the United States.


Last October, the Serbian police recovered two paintings by Pablo Picasso -- "Tete de Cheval (Horse's Head)" and "Verre et Pichet (Glass and Pitcher)" -- stolen in 2008 from a gallery in the Swiss town of Pfaeffikon, near Zurich.


The police official said law enforcement agencies from several countries had cooperated in the latest investigation that led to the apparent recovery of the Cezanne masterpiece.


Serbia's state prosecutor is expected to issue a statement or give a press briefing on the case later on Thursday.



Cezanne, Matisse masterworks auctioned for $19M each




Stefan Wermuth / REUTERS


Sotheby's employees with Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream," which will be auctioned Wednesday.


By Chris Michaud , Reuters


The spring art sales got off to a solid start at Christie's on Tuesday, with works by Cezanne and Matisse each selling for $19 million as the auction house moved $117 million worth of Impressionist and modern art.


The sales continue on Wednesday at Sotheby's, where the star lot is the once-in-a-lifetime offering of Edvard Munch's seminal work, "The Scream." Sotheby's has estimated it at about $80 million, but many in the art world expect it could soar as high as $150 million, given its fame.


Tuesday's sale, relatively small at about half the size of typical evening sales of recent years, easily achieved its pre-sale estimate of $90 million to $130 million, with only three of the 31 lots on offer going unsold.


Christie's officials said they had chosen to assemble a tightly edited sale, focusing on top-quality works fresh to the market and in mint condition, and the strategy appeared to have paid off.


"We're thrilled. It was a great sale, and we had a marvelous sell-through rate," the highest for an Impressionist auction since 2006, said Brooke Lampley, head of Impressionist and modern art at Christie's New York.


The result, Lampley added, "was very much what we expected" after Christie's tried to tailor the sale to the realities of the current art market, which has recovered solidly after falling in the early days of the financial crisis.


"It's an extraordinary situation," she said. "The art market hasn't correlated to other markets. We see a lot more people choosing to put their money into art."


Cezanne's "Card Player," a recently rediscovered watercolor study, and Matisse's vibrant floral composition "Les Pivoines" were the sale's top lots, each selling for $19,122,500 including commission.


The Matisse nearly doubled the estimate, while the Cezanne was in the middle of its $15 million to $20 million estimate. Estimates do not include commission.


Other highlights included Picasso's "Le Repos," a small portrait of his sleeping mistress Marie-Therese Walter, which fetched just under $9.9 million and easily beat the high estimate of $7 million.


Monet's landscape "Les demoiselles de Giverny" sold for $9.6 million, but failed to make its low estimate.


Lampley noted the sale was marked by "particularly strong American bidding."



Roy Lichtenstein’s

Roy Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl” (1964) is expected to sell in the range of $30 million to $40 million.

“Attendant 5,’’


In November 2008, when the financial markets and the art markets collapsed, Christie’s tried to sell “Attendant 5,’’ this Brice Marden painting from 1996-1999. But there were no takers willing to pay anywhere near its then $10 million to $15 million estimate. The trouble was, the auction house had given the seller a guarantee – an undisclosed sum promised to the consignor regardless of the outcome of the sale – and when nobody wanted it, the painting ended up belonging to Christie’s.
The auction house is trying its luck again, on May 8th, but this time with lower expectations. It is estimated to fetch $7 million to $10 million.