European Arts auction house has been the pioneer of the new trends on the Czech art market from the beggining, what we consider to be our great advantage. We think the time has come for collectors and investors on the Czech art market to have the opportunity to bid in a comfortable way as it is common everywhere else in the world. From now on, we will continue to publish only the estimate for each lot in our auction catalogue, such as Christie's or Sotheby's does. The starting price is either negotiated directly with the owner of the item and the auctioneer will start the auction on this price of a concrete art work or the reserve price can be negotiated with the client and the auctioneer determines the starting price himself. In such case, the reserve price is either reached or exceeded and the work is sold, or the reserve price will not be met and the auctioneer will declare the lot as not sold. The starting price is usually around ¾ of the lower limit of the estimate and the possible reserve price is always lower than the estimate.

I would also like to point out few artworks that will be offered at our Grand Hall Auction in the Municipal House in Prague, on Oct 7, 2018. Firstly, there is one of the chef-d'oeuvre of our auction, a painting by Jakub Schikaneder called Quiet Sea. As prof. Tomáš Vlček wrote, this painting can be considered as one of the happiest steps of the early 20th century paintings towards the new painting concepts that combined the minimalist composition of the work with the theme of light scattered in the surface of the painting. This approach was later developed by one of the most important American painter, Mark Rothko.

Another masterpiece of our upcoming auction is Malý Dubovec by Otakar Lebeda - one of the greatest talents of Mařák school. The importance of this author's reference work is underlined by the fact that it was the major painting of the exhibition Má vlast, that took place in the Prague Castle Riding School in 2015. It is one of the most breathtaking views of South Bohemia that I know.

Finally, dear clients, I would like to remind you of a unique lot from one of the most interesting young generation representatives. The artist and performer, Epos 257, puts us in front of the work called 3080 transactions, which highlights very actual topic of the circulation of money, commodities and services. A unique artifact, which is incomparable even on a global scale, consists of valid Czech banknotes with a total value of 878,600 CZK.

Everything else you can find out in our catalogue with 242 master pieces, which will also be shown in our gallery from Monday September 24, 2018. I think that all the lots have the chance to become the adornment of the best collections, in our country or abroad.

Finally, I would like to thank you for the fidelity you have been showing us for years, it is not a matter of course for us and we greatly appreciate it.

We are looking forward to your visit and I wish you good luck in the auction!

Yours faithfully,
Albert Trnka
Executive director
European Arts Investments s.r.o.