Versace auction follows hot on the heels of YSL
Sotheby's is selling the contents of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace's villa on Lake Como, a month after rival Christie's launched a record-breaking sale of Yves Saint Laurent's art and furniture collection raised £333m (€374m).
The third and final auction of the murdered designer's residence is expected to fetch over £2m ($2.8m) at the New Bond Street galleries in London next Wednesday.
The 550 lots of continental furniture, sculpture, paintings and silver works will include a never-before seen painting by Johann Zoffany, the only known work from a series of four paintings from the early years of the artist’s time in India, all previously thought to have been lost.
A pair of Italian cherry wood breakfront bookcases by Karl Roos, originally commissioned by Princess Pauline Borghese for the library at Palazzo Borghese in Rome, could raise £220,000 between them.
Versace, who spent some time at the Italian lake-front Villa Fontanelle, was murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan in 1997.
Christie's three day YSL auction last month in Paris which had been expected to raise €274m, surpassed expectations by nearly a third, giving the art market a much-needed shot in the arm.
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