Marriot Hotel - Singapore, Monday, 23 October 2006 - Larasati Auctioneers managed to pull in SGD 2,261,354 at her 8th sale in Singapore when 106 lots from the collection found new homes.
More variety of artworks were being offered to the public with the introduction of the Peppermint Collection that brought along works by new emerging artists which included photographs, prints and other unique works of art. 77% of artworks in Peppermint section were sold.
The auction was well attended. More than 150 people turned up, and after a somewhat slow start, bidding then got more active as the sale progressed.
The star lots of the sale included works by Indonesian masters, Lee Man Fong (“Three Horses”, lot 124), Hendra Gunawan (“Chatting”, lot125) and Widayat (“Flora Fauna”, lot 127) that raked in SGD 221,800, SGD 128,700 and SGD 175,500 respectively.
Although the young Indian artist Ratnadeep Gopal Adivrekar made an impressive debut at Larasati in the Peppermint section (lot 53 & lot 54), Indian lots over all did not perform well. The hammer went down only at SGD 270,000 on the top lot, Husain’s “Mother Teresa“ (lot 77), which was well below its minimum price.
The contemporary section on the other hand performed best. Bidding was very active and emotional at times. Among the highlights were the cover lot, “Summer” (lot 157) by Zhang Da Zhong, “The Champ” (lot 158) by Gong Lilong and “Mao Suit”(lot 151) by Sui Jian Guo which fetched SGD 49,140, SGD 46,800 and SGD 56,160 respectively.
The best performing lot, however, went to a young Chinese artist, Xue Dai. Her work titled “The Red Veil” (lot 69) was sold at SGD 30,420, four times higher than its starting price of SGD 8,000, a new record for the artist.
“It was a very challenging sale. We had a good collection but we were up against pessimism among collectors after witnessing a tough sale at another place a day earlier that saw many big lots go unsold. Long weekend to celebrate the Deepavali and Hari Raya Aidil Fitri could be a factor. Taking all these into consideration, we passed the test with flying colors!” - Daniel Komala (President Director, Larasati Auctioneers)