Forget old Masters, the new trend in art is prehistoric
FRANCE: Two dinosaur skeletons marketed more as trendy design objects than prehistoric fossils have sold for almost €3 million (NZ$5m) at auction in Paris.
A diplodocus – a huge herbivore measuring 12 metres from nose to tail – fetched €1.44m (NZ$2.4m), compared with €1.41m (NZ$2.35m) for a carnivorous allosaurus with ‘‘60 sharpened teeth’’, a mere 3.8m in length.
Both roamed the Earth around 150 million years ago, in the late Jurassic period.
Sixty per cent intact, the allosaurus had been expected to fetch up to €650,000 (NZ$1m). It lived in an area in what is today North America and Europe.
A North American dweller, the diplodocus had been estimated at up to €500,000 (NZ$835,000).
Only a handful of dinosaur skeletons are auctioned off around the world each year, and are mostly snapped up by wealthy collectors or museums in Europe or America.
Scars left from battle or disease can raise prices.
The pair were bought by an online overseas buyer, the Drouot auction house said.
‘‘It shows the interest of a new generation of fans both for the Jurassic era and the tools of the 21st century,’’ said Iacopo Briano, a fossil sales expert. He hailed the ‘‘exceptional’’ sale prices, although neither was a record.
The nationality of Thursday’s buyer was not revealed but auctioneers have noted a surge in interest in China.
‘‘Dinosaurs have become cool, trendy – real objects of decoration, like paintings,’’ Briano said.
He cited Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicolas Cage, the Hollywood actors, as fans of enormous prehistoric ornaments.
In 1997, McDonald’s and Walt Disney were among donors who raised US$8.36m to buy Sue – the most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever unearthed – for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
– Telegraph Group