Sotheby’s Magnum Opus sale is the collection of one man who bought only at auction, which makes it an auctioneer’s dream. The relationship between auction houses and dealers may be one of mutual dependency and tension, but sales such as this set benchmarks for value. They also build confidence in connoisseurship through the reassurance of an underbidder.
The Bernheimer Safavid ‘Vase’-technique carpet fragment, probably Kirman, southeast Persia, circa 1600. 122 × 74 cm (approx. 4ft × 2ft 5in). Sotheby’s, Magnum Opus evening sale, 22 October 2026, lot 17, sold for $448,000.
The evening sale on 22 October was the first chapter of a four-sale dispersal of 768 lots. Among the most recognisable carpets on offer was lot 17, the Bernheimer Safavid ‘Vase’-technique carpet fragment, circa 1600. Its estimate of $350,000–500,000 reflected the $365,000 the collector paid at Sotheby’s New York on 31 January 2014, when it was sold from the collection of Robert P. Hendrickson. Before that it sold in the Bernheimer sale on Valentine’s Day 1996 for $120,890. The question was whether the market had changed and whether the fragment would keep climbing. It did, selling for $448,000. The rate of ascent has slowed, however. It gained about $13,560 a year between 1996 and 2014, and has gained about $6,920 a year since.
Daniel Shaffer has cast his eye over this exceptionally beautiful fragment a number of times. In 1996 he observed that ‘the easy fluidity of the arabesque as they glide over and under across the saxe-blue field turns a mere fragment into a work of art’.
