Strauss & Co
89 Central St, Houghton Estate, Johannesburg, South Africa 2198
+27 11-728-8246
About Auction House
Strauss & Co is founded on prodigious expertise and distinctive presentation and is synonymous with top quality art, decorative arts and jewellery. With an average turnover per annum of over R155 million and an average sell-through rate of over 80%, Strauss & Co has sold nine of the ten most expensive paintings ever auctioned in South Africa as well as holding numerous artists’ sale records.Auction Previews & News
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Auction IndustryMajor Pierneef landscape heads Strauss & Co July flagship auction on 27 and 28 July
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef (South African 1886-1957), Bosveld. Signed and dated 53. Oil on canvas, 75 by 100 cm excluding frame; 100 by 125 by 8cm including frame. Estimate: R 9 000 000 - 12 000 000. JOHANNESBURG.- The cover lot of Strauss & Co’s winter Live Virtual auction, due to be held over three days from 26 to 28 July, is a monumental bushveld scene by JH Pierneef. Painted in 1953, Bosveld (estimate R9 – 12 million) is a masterpiece from this coveted painter’s late period and originates from a superb single-owner collection that includes museum-quality works by Gregoire Boonzaier, Dylan Lewis, Alexis Preller, Gerard Sekoto, Irma Stern and Edoardo Villa, among others. “The offering of this survey collection of important South African art from the property of a collector has been purposefully scheduled to mark the climax of our three-day sale,” says Susie Goodman, executive director with Strauss & Co. “The range and depth of this collection is astonishing. It charts major trends in South African landscape painting, from Pieter Wenning to Walter Meyer, and includes fine humanist figure studies, notably an Eastwood-period oil by Gerard Sekoto, as well as a stand-out landscape by Irma Stern.” The 45-lot collection will be offered to the public in a dedicated session on Tuesday, 28 July at 7pm. South Africa’s pre-eminent auction house when it comes to handling discerning private collections, Strauss & Co will also include works from a second private art collection in the up-coming Live Virtual auction. Billed as the Property of a Pretoria Collector and comprised of 11 historical lots, this single-owner collection will be the first of the two to go under the hammer, on Tuesday 28 July at 4pm. This focused collection includes a rare bronze by master sculptor Anton van Wouw, cast at the Roman foundry of Galileo Massa. The Scout (estimate R900 000 – 1.2 million) depicts a Boer guerrilla fighter on patrol peering over a rocky ridge. New scholarly research has added significantly to an appreciation of the Italian master foundrymen used by Van Wouw during his lifetime. Other highlights from the property of a…
Auction ResultStrauss & Co combined auction success during Covid 19 affirms support for the arts and fine wine
One of the aims of the specialist wine sale has been to establish credible benchmark prices for wine collectors. CAPE TOWN.-Strauss & Co’s first virtual sale of South African and international fine wines, held in full compliance with national lockdown regulations, saw all 115 lots in this Bordeaux-themed sale find buyers. Hosted by online auction platform Invaluable.com, the white-glove sale – auction parlance for 100% sales in a session – earned a total of R2.12 million, far surpassing the initial pre-sale high estimate for the collectable wines sold. “I am very proud of this emphatic result and what it signals for the South African wine industry during this difficult time in our country’s history,” says Strauss & Co chairperson Frank Kilbourn. “Strauss & Co’s partnership with Invaluable enabled our clients to compete effortlessly for lots in real time. The bidding was energetic and simulated the vitality of being in an auction room. While we celebrate our clients’ adoption of this platform, the key thing to emerge from this sale was the robust demand. The sale attracted 533 bidders from over 20 countries, with nearly half of these bidders being new and first-time clients for Strauss & Co.” The top-ten lots sold included rare wines from France, South Africa and the United States, bearing testimony to the global spread as well as appeal of Bordeaux-influenced winemaking. The themed approach has become embedded in the year-old wine auction, a joint venture between Strauss & Co, wine specialist Roland Peens of Wine Cellar fine wine merchants and sommelier Higgo Jacobs. Another new departure saw this specialist sale incorporated into Strauss & Co’s benchmark general sale of fine art, jewellery, furniture and decorative arts, which is held twice yearly in Cape Town. Due to the volume of lots on offer, the general sale has been spread across two days, with wine launching the sale in a standalone session held a day in advance of the other sessions. One of the aims of the specialist wine sale has been to establish credible benchmark prices for wine collectors. This requires setting pre-sale estimates that fairly balance…
