A sudden decision to pull off the freeway and check out an art auction led to the purchase of a lifetime for 28-year-old Colorado resident Danielle Allen.
After seeing lots sold for up to $100,000 at a Global Art Auction USA event, Allen, a businesswoman, firefighter and self-described Renaissance woman, “just wanted to put her hand up” and immediately did so at Salvador Dalí’s work. own and tube. The Spanish surrealist’s 1974 etching was expected to sell for $15,000, but her offer of $4,000 — which she made as a joke — was unbeatable. This was not entirely a pleasant surprise to Allen, who had no intention of buying the part.
Allen recreated the drama of her winning bid in a trio of TikTok videos, the first of which has been viewed 3.3 million times. Allen, a newcomer to the app, had only uploaded a handful of videos before her viral moment. “I needed other people to laugh at my misfortunes so I wouldn’t feel so stupid,” she told Artnet News, before adding, “I mostly wanted to share it with my family.”
Dalí is one of several prominent artists, including Marc Chagall and Gustave Doré, who have depicted Jean de la Fontaine’s 17th-century fable, which emphasizes the importance of being flexible and not stubborn. But, as Allen pointed out, the Spaniard “does it with Dalí”, turning the oak tree into a withered man and including details such as a horse and buggy.
The certificate of authenticity that accompanied the work of art. Courtesy of Danielle Allen.
“Dali was not at all what I imagined,” Allen said, describing the experience of viewing the work at home after checking the work’s certificate of authenticity. “But compared to the other versions of own and tubethis is definitely my favourite.”
Allen’s interest in the auction was first sparked by the sale of an untitled Klimt sketch that is “a bit of a precursor to The kiss”, a work that he also bought. It was the first time that he had offered a work at auction with his curiosity for the history of art stemming from an “interest in human expression, but also in what we prescribe value to: it is a small petri dish to understand what life was like. society at a given time. ”
For now, Allen intends to keep the piece, but as he jokes in a TikTok video, anyone with “fun money or wants to turn it into an NFT and sell it for two million dollars, let me know.”
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