Daimler AG, the world’s second-largest maker of luxury vehicles, is hoping to raise as much as $16 million from the November auction in New York of a Jeff Koons sculpture from its corporate art collection.
The chromium steel work, “Balloon Flower (Blue),” will be included in Christie’s International’s November 10 contemporary-art sale, the London-based auction house said on Saturday in an e-mail.
Daimler is sure to receive a minimum preset amount, courtesy of an unidentified third-party guarantor, said Christie’s. The low estimate is $12 million.
The 11-foot (3.3 meter) work was made by Koons in 1995-2000 as part of his “Celebration” series of high-tech sculptures inspired by children’s parties and lovers’ gifts.
One of five versions in different colors, it stood for many years in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz. Daimler acquired the work directly from the artist. Proceeds from the sale will be used to develop the Daimler Art Collection, which comprises almost 2,000 works, Christie’s said.
Auction prices for Koons’s “Celebration” sculptures surged during the art boom. In November 2007, New York-based collector Adam Lindemann sold “Hanging Heart (Magenta/ Gold)” at Sotheby’s in New York for $23.6 million, an auction record for a living artist. He was reported to have bought the sculpture from the Gagosian Gallery for $4 million in 2005.
Another version of “Balloon Flower”, in magenta, was sold by Dallas-based collector Howard Rachofsky at Christie’s in London in June 2008, for an artist record of 12.9 million pounds (then $25.8 million). Both sellers were guaranteed minimum prices by the auction houses.
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