The Wall Street Journalreports that Alberto Giacometti's 6-foot sculpture of a walking man sold for $104.3 million
at a Sotheby's auction in London. It is the highest auction price ever paid for a piece of artwork. The WSJ says the high bid for Walking Man I could signal a resurgence in the art market.
The 6-foot-tall bronze depicts a wiry man in mid-stride, his right foot jutting forward, his head erect and and his arms hanging at his side. Giacometti, a modern master known for his haunting sculptures of blank-faced Everymen, cast the work 60 years ago as part of a commission to plant several of his bronze figures on Chase Manhattan Bank's Pine Street plaza in New York City. The artist famously struggled with the project, eventually quitting it but casting stand-alone versions of several of the planned figures, including "Walking Man I."
The price breaks the existing $104.2 million auction record, set six years ago at Sotheby's, for Pablo Picasso's 1906 portrait "Boy With a Pipe," whose buyer remains unknown.
Art Daily has a photo here that gives you a good idea of the statue's size. You can read more about Alberto Giacometti here on artcyclopedia.com.
Lost star Evangeline Lilly is auctioning off 3 different lunches on eBay. Evangeline will meet the winners of the lunch auctions in Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Vancouver. 100% of the proceeds from the auctions will go to the GO Campaign, to fund projects in Rwanda. The auctions run until February, 4th. You can find the auction listings here on eBay. Evangeline talks about helping Rwanda through her Ebay lunch auctions in the video below. Take a look:
Christie's New York recently auctioned off the Evening Star Diamond, a pear-shaped 39 carat, D color diamond from a private collection. The gem comes from India's ancient Golconda mines, the source of many of the world's finest
diamonds, including the celebrated Hope Diamond, and the historic Wittelsbach Diamond. Christie's said the diamond was estimated at $3,600,000 to $5,500,000 ahead of the auction. National Jewelerreports that the diamond was purchased for $5.4 million by an anonymous buyer.
Toshiba teamed up GQ Magazine and four male celebrities to create a customized, limited-edition laptops for charity. The laptops are being auctioned off on eBay. The celebrities that designed laptops for Toshiba include Hines Ward, Rainn Wilson, Joe Perry and Omar Epps. You can find the laptops and auction listings here. The auctions end on December 11th.
Ebay has been venturing away from its online auction and marketplace recently to try and reach customers offline. Ebay launched a temporary store in New York City earlier this year. They also have taken the show on the road with eBay Mobile Boutique. The eBay Mobile Boutique travels from city to city and highlights merchandise available on ebay.com. The traveling boutique also has examples of some of the hottest toys and gifts on the bus. CNN's Josh Levs checked in on the eBay Mobile Boutique outside of CNN Center in Atlanta. Take a look:
Christie's is hosting a Bulgari auction that will raise money for the Save the Children organization. The auction includes beautiful Bulgari jewelry and watches, including the spinel and diamond ear pendants pictured above. The auction will be held December 8th at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York. You can find more details here.
An impressive looking dinosaur skeleton is going up for sale at an auction in Paris. ITN reports that the Spinosaurus fossil is expected to fetch 500,000 Euros, about $750,000 U.S. Take a look:
Sotheby's and Louis Vuitton are hosting a charity auction to raise money for the Red Cross in London tomorrow. The auction includes a Louis Vuitton Red Cross Kit pictured above. It also includes designs by Ferran Adria, Damien Hirst, Annie Leibotivz, Marc Jabocs and others. Below is a medical cabinet designed by Damien Hirst. Sotheby's has set up special mini-site here for the auction.
CNN reports that what could be John F. Kennedy's final autograph sold for $39,000 at an auction. JFK signed the front page of the Dallas Morning News for a Dallas woman on the morning of the day he was assassinated.
Kennedy reportedly signed the front page of the Dallas Morning News, which contained a photo of him and the first lady and a preview of their arrival that day in Dallas.
A Dallas woman handed the president the newspaper and he signed it for her, according to Heritage Auctions, the company that sold the item. The date of his assassination, which came about two hours later, was on the front page of that paper near his signature.
"It's chillingly historic because it documents the day, documents the location and it's certainly one of the last signatures of John Kennedy," Doug Norwine, a director at Heritage Auctions told CNN affiliate KDAF.
CNN says the person who bought the autograph immediately insured it for millions.
Celebrities and designers decorated houses to raise money for Women In Need, Inc. (WIN), an organization that provides housing, help and hope to New York City women and their families who are homeless and disadvantaged. The houses are being auctioned off online in an auction that runs until November 30th. Houses were designed by Sean Avery; Lidia Bastianich; the Beckham family; Halle Berry; Mary J. Blige; Chris "Ludacris" Bridges; Bobbi Brown; Cast of the Broadway Musical Hair; Cast of the Broadway play Race; Cast of the Broadway play Superior Donuts; Sean "Diddy" Combs; Oscar de la Renta; Cheyenne Jackson; Donna Karan; Monica Rich Kosann; Dylan Lauren; Richard Leach for Park Avenue Autumn; Deborah Lloyd for Kate Spade; Jennifer Lopez; Isaac Mizrahi; Moby; Debra Messing; Josie Natori; George Rodrigue; Cameron Silver for Decades; Justin Timberlake & Trace Ayala; Today Show Anchors; Diane Von Furstenberg and Vera Wang. Parsons The New School for Design collaborated on several of the house designs.
Diddy's house feature a helicopter on top. You can bid on it here.
Isaac Mizrahi designed his house to be like a jewelry box that opens up. It's fabulous. Bidding is already at $1,750 for Isaac's house. You can bid on it here.
Bobbi Brown's house designed for WIN resembles her makeup collections. You can bid on it here.
All the WIN celebrity designed houses can be found here on charitybuzz.com.
eBay has launched the Inside Source,
an online magazine that will spotlight some of the products available on eBay and highlight trends. The site also contains data from eBay such a keyword cloud showing the "most searched items on eBay." The top searched terms are currently dominated by name brands.
"Imagine that every day, every person in the United States tells eBay what they
want," said Alan Marks, Senior Vice President of Global Communications for eBay.
"That's the power of how many searches occur on eBay every day. Now add insights
gleaned from almost 200 million live product listings, the stories of more than
25 million sellers and the several million purchases people make each day on
eBay, and you get The Inside Source - a perspective on shopping trends, pop
culture obsessions and the stuff people love, that only eBay can offer."
Meredith Barnett says, "The Inside Source content will reflect what inspires us on eBay, from a profile of an art dealer discovering museum-quality pieces to a breakdown of the hottest trends in handbags. There's such a diverse array of stories. We hope to provide readers insight they won't get anywhere else."
U.S. Customs confiscated two lovely, 2,000 year old urns that were illegally exported into the U.S. Officials said that the illegal antiquities trade is robbing countries of their heritage. U.S. Customs said that the urns were scheduled to be sold at auction at Christie's. Take a look:
A Chicago auction house is putting a clump of what it claims is Elvis Presley's hair up for auction. The auction listing for the hair from Leslie Hindman Auctioneers can be found here. John Reznikoff, an expert in celebrity hair authentication, said, "the hair appears to match the hair in my collection [from same U.S. Army haircut] in coarseness and color . . . this is more than likely a genuine lock of Elvis' hair short of a DNA test (often inconclusive) proving otherwise."
The value of the hair is said to be between $8,000 and $12,000. Celebrity hair has been used to make diamonds in the past. You can see a diamond created from Beethoven's hair here.
The Elvis hair clump with be auctioned with other Elvis memorabilia on Sunday, October 18th.
A woman from Alabama paid $63,500 to win the online auction for a private dinner for five with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The bidding started at $25,000 and there were 61 bids according to eBay. Take a look:
Scarlett Johansson is auctioning a chance to meet her at the red carpet premiere of Iron Man 2. The auction runs from September 17th until September 24th on eBay and benefits Oxfam. Colin Firth is also auctioning a meet on the London premiere of Disney's A Chrismast Carol. Colin Firth's auction runs from September 24th to October 1st. Chef Giada De Laurentiis is offering a chance to meet for lunch in Los Angeles. Giada's auction runs from October 1st to October 8th.
The Wall Street Journal 
