This market is a duel between two expensive paintings listed for sale at Sotheby's "Contemporary Evening Auction" in New York.

• Richard Diebenkorn - Ocean Park #126

  • Estimate: 18,000,000 - 25,000,000 USD

• Lucio Fontana - Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio

  • Estimate: 20,000,000 - 30,000,000 USD

Thus, the Fontana has a slightly higher estimate, but as there is large variation in auction results, the winner is far from certain.

This market resolves to the painting which sells for a higher value at auction.

Resolution details:

• Example from a past auction: This painting by Vigée Le Brun sold for 3,085,000 USD. This is the equivalent number I will use.

• Edge cases:

  • If one fails to sell for any reason, it resolves to the other.

  • If there's a tie (or they both fail to sell), both resolve at 50%.

  • If any scenarios for resolution are unclear, please ask.

Richard Diebenkorn - Ocean Park #126

Painted in 1984, Ocean Park #126 stands out as one of the pinnacles of this now iconic series. Against a palette of warm golden and yellow tones recalling the bright California sunshine, Diebenkorn lays out a series of diaphanous bands that bisect the canvas along horizontal and diagonal axes. Rendered in a chromatic range from rich reds to jewel like blues these lines act as anchor points that allow the viewer to access the work, and center themselves within it. (Christie's)

Lucio Fontana - Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio

At the apex of Abstract Spatialism is a select body of work that radically expanded painting’s possibilities in the postwar age: Lucio Fontana’s celebrated Concetto Spaziale, La fine di Dio (Spatial Concepts, The End of God). The avant-garde series, of which the present vivid yellow work is a striking exemplar, consists of large, sumptuous, viscerally pierced “eggs” which Fontana painstakingly oil-painted in seductive, bold monochromes. The ovoid masterpieces communicate scientific and religious principles aesthetically, in a Neo-Modernist fashion. (Christie's)

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