SOTHEBY'S. Die Sammlung der Markgrafen und Großherzöge von Baden. Baden-Baden 5. bis 21. October 1995.: Baden Castle Germany Sothebys Auction, 1995. 7 volume auction catalogue of treasures. Package includes actual bidding number and bid sheet!

'Sotheby's Baden Germany Castle Auction Catalog' - 1995 Sotheby's 7 volume (6 catalogues + introduction volume) auction catalogue of treasures PACKAGE, including bidding number, bid sheet, and ephemera!

This 1995 sale was huge, even by Sotheby's standards, running for 2 weeks. This catalogue set was limited to 20K copies, and includes a foldup Baden family geneology, measuring 3'x2'. The six volumes include: Volume I: Furniture, Clocks & Tapestries; Volume II: Art; Volume III: Ceramics & Glass; Volume IV: Furniture & Decorations; Volume V: Pictures & Prints; Volume VI: European & Oriental Ceramics & Glass. Also present is the Introductory volume.

This set weighs ~15 lbs, so will require additional shipping costs.

(SOTHEBY'S. Die Sammlung der Markgrafen und Großherzöge von Baden. Baden-Baden 5. bis 21. October 1995.)

From the New York Times: October 25, 1995, Section C, Page 13:

" The desire for a memento of princely history, even if it's just an empty picture frame or a cuckoo clock with the noble coat of arms, is compelling, and Sotheby's played on that desire at a huge recent auction in Germany to draw crowds so large and prices so high that it surprised even itself.

"We knew it would do well," said Christoph Graf Douglas, managing director of Sotheby's in Germany. "We never thought it would do this well."

The event, a 15-day auction said by Sotheby's to have been the longest of the century, set a world record for a house sale, bringing in $54.7 million by its end on Saturday and dwarfing Sotheby's presale estimate of $20 million to $30 million.

The sale attracted 58,000 people to the spa town of Baden-Baden from as far as Argentina and Taiwan. Being sold were 25,000 objects (only a handful of them particularly distinguished), the contents of the Neues Schloss, a 106-room castle belonging to His Royal Highness Max Margrave of Baden.

In the Margrave's, Sotheby's had a a marketable pedigree to work with: he is the nephew of the Duke of Edinburgh, the first cousin of Prince Charles and the grandson of Prince Max von Baden, the last Chancellor of the Imperial German Government. A recession and mismanagement of his agricultural, forestry and industrial holdings have left the 62-year-old Margrave $184 million in debt; hence the sale.

The House of Baden lost 15 of its castles (it has 3 left) in an expropriation by a Socialist German Government in 1919, and the Neues Schloss became the accidental warehouse for their contents.

Sotheby's aggressively marketed the Baden name in the months before the sale. The catalogue had a special pull-out section tracing the entire Baden family tree. And rather than giving clients the usual shop-at-home service by taking jewelry or art to the world's major art capitals, as it does for most of its important sales, the auction house used the castle itself as the selling point.

"We felt it was important for people to see everything on site," said Simon de Pury, chairman of Sotheby's Europe. "It was really the best way to convey the feeling." Seeing the furniture, art and objects against the castle background put a romantic cast on what in many cases were ordinary pieces.

Ten days before the sale began, private planes flew in clients from around the world for special viewings and parties. For the sale itself, Sotheby's turned the grounds of the castle into a kind of auction-house amusement park: a huge white tent holding 1,000 seats was put up as an ad hoc auction room. Next door was a cafe, so clients could go for a quick espresso and a bite to eat when the bidding got dull, as it frequently did.

There was also a proper restaurant on the castle grounds and special tents where Sotheby's sold the catalogues and other items like Sotheby's umbrellas and postcards. "We tried to make it an easy atmosphere, a place where everyone could have fun," Mr. Douglas said.

The auction house deliberately kept estimates low so bidders would not feel intimidated by the noble provenance. A cash-and-carry mentality was also part of Sotheby's strategy: buyers could leave a sale and actually take their purchases with them or, if they preferred, use the international shipping company that Sotheby's had standing by.

There were client-service representatives from across the world to take care of bidders in virtually any language. The catalogue -- a $70, 13-pound, 7-volume boxed set -- was in German and English. Sotheby's officials say they sold all 20,000 copies during the sale and that it had already been spotted for resale for $350 in Germany.

Only about two dozen items for sale were of exceptional rarity and quality. The rest were the sorts of wares you would expect to find in any European house sale: mediocre Old Master paintings, furniture in varying condition, porcelains and quirky odds and ends (including rooms of plaster busts). And there were dozens of pairs of antlers.

The Margrave and his family had amassed many important objects and works of art that the public never got a chance to see or to buy. Before the sale, the regional government of Baden-Wurttenberg bought $31.6 million worth of art and objects, including the Margrave's library and a set of five early-16th-century painted altar panels by the German artist Bernhard Strigel.

Selling what was left took about 105 hours of work divided among six auctioneers. Bidders competed for everything from a gold and coral-pink velvet court robe worn around 1885 by the Grand Duchess Luise of Baden, which sold for $15,382; to a rare 17th-century carved rhinoceros horn and ivory cup and cover that went for $719,325, to an ivory and silver-gilt tankard made in Vienna in 1697 that was sold for $543,490 to Ken and Marilyn Thompson, collectors from Toronto. The couple came to Baden-Baden equipped with penlight and magnifying glass to inspect the piece.

Among the most fought-after items was a rare tea table by the Swedish court ebeniste Georg Haupt. The King of Sweden bid for the piece (he and the Queen made a special visit to Baden-Baden to see it the week before the sale), but he lost out to an unidentified London dealer who paid slightly more than $1 million. Another star piece, "Venetian Carnival," a collection of 111 porcelain figures, set a record for 18th-century ceramics when it sold for $960,480 to an unidentified German collector.

Between what the Margrave received from the regional government and what he made from Sotheby's, he took in about $80 million, officials of the auction house said. Sotheby's declined to say how much it made. Its expenses were high; it spent about six months cataloging, cleaning and organizing the objects, and about 250 members of its staff were involved.

Throughout the auctions, Sotheby's kept track of who was bidding and who was buying. Buyers came from 29 countries, including Turkey, Egypt and Romania. Germany represented about 70 percent of all buyers, followed by Britain with 6 percent; Switzerland, 4.6 percent; France, 3.8 percent, and the United States, 3.7 percent.

Private collectors formed the largest segment of buyers, said Mr. de Pury, the Sotheby's Europe chairman. There were also unexpected buyers, many of whom had never bid at an auction before. The local radio station, SWF 3, bought its insignia, an elk head, for $1,617. Several local shops bought souvenirs, too, as did many German museums. American institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum were said to have been unsuccessful bidders.

Dealers, realizing that the Baden name carries good resale value, were prepared to center their schedules around the bidding. Axel Vervoordt, a dealer from Antwerp, Belgium, had to be in New York for the International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show. "I got up nearly every morning for the last two weeks at 5 A.M. to bid," said Mr. Vervoordt, who estimates that he spent about $1 million by telephone buying paintings and objects including a 12-foot-high chandelier.

John Hobbs, a London dealer, said he looked for what he called "sleepers."

"In a sale like this," he said, "there have to be things collectors would overlook because they are in need of restoration."

Several dealers, including Mr. Hobbs and Mr. Vervoordt, are still chagrined that they were unable to buy an unusual painting of the moon, signed and dated "Ofenburg, 1888 J. Grimm," which had been expected to sell for $560. It brought 87 times its estimate, selling for $48,714 to an unidentified London dealer. "I went up to $35,000, and I regret that I didn't go higher," said Mr. Vervoordt. "Sales like this don't come along very often. And I loved that painting very much." "

[Sotheby's, New York, 1995. Soft Cover. 7 softcover volume set in slipcase, Condition: Excellent. Clean inside and out. ~12" X 9" x 4"]

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