Rothko 1967 work carries $10-15 million estimate at Sotheby’s

The latest:

An untitled 1967 work by Mark Rothko, executed in oil on paper mounted on canvas, carries an estimate of $10 million to $15 million at Sotheby’s, according to the auction house’s lot listing. The painting is lot 5 in the evening auction of the Theodore and Ruth Baum collection, which Sotheby’s has titled Vision, with live bidding opening November 17 at 03:00 AM GST.

Details:

• The work: Sotheby’s lists the piece simply as Untitled, executed in 1967, three years before Rothko’s death. The medium is oil on paper mounted on canvas, a support the artist used extensively in his final years, and the sheet measures 40 1/2 by 26 inches, or 102.9 by 66 centimeters.
• The estimate: The house set a pre-sale range of $10 million to $15 million. Estimates exclude the buyer’s premium, meaning a hammer price inside that band would produce a higher final total. Sotheby’s did not publish a reserve figure for the lot.
• The sale: The painting is lot 5 in Vision: The Extraordinary Collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum, an evening auction. Sotheby’s has not disclosed how many lots the Baum collection comprises or what the sale is expected to total overall.
• The guarantees: Sotheby’s flags the lot as guaranteed property with irrevocable bids. That means a minimum price is assured to the seller and at least one party has committed in advance to bid a set amount, so the work will sell regardless of activity in the room. The identity of the guarantor was not disclosed.
• The timing: Live bidding begins November 17 at 03:00 AM GST, placing the session in New York evening hours. Sotheby’s listing does not name the sale’s city or the estimated duration of the evening session.
• Catalogue raisonne: Sotheby’s states the work is being considered for inclusion in the forthcoming Mark Rothko Online Resource and Catalogue Raisonne of works on paper, compiled by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The house did not give a publication date for that project.
• The provenance: The lot is presented under the names of Theodore and Ruth Baum, with Sotheby’s describing the holdings as an extraordinary collection. The listing does not detail when or from whom the Baums acquired the Rothko.
• The artist: Sotheby’s gives Rothko’s dates as 1903 to 1970. The 1967 execution date places the work among the late paper pieces produced in the final stretch of the artist’s career.

Background:

Rothko turned heavily to oil on paper in the 1960s, a body of work the National Gallery of Art is now cataloguing separately from his canvases. Inclusion in a catalogue raisonne is the standard scholarly confirmation of a work’s place in an artist’s recorded output.

Between the lines:

The guarantee structure signals Sotheby’s priced the lot for certainty rather than spectacle. An irrevocable bid removes the risk of a public failure on a headline name, but it also caps the drama: the floor is already set before the auctioneer speaks. The pending catalogue raisonne consideration, disclosed rather than concluded, is the one open variable attached to the work.

What’s next

Live bidding opens November 17 at 03:00 AM GST. The hammer price against the $10-15 million range, and whether the irrevocable bidder ends up as the buyer, are the signals to watch.