Provenance
Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills
Exhibited
Beverly Hills, Gagosian Gallery, Damien Hirst – Superstition, 22 February – 5 April, 2007
Literature
Damien Hirst: Superstition, exh. cat., Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery, 2007, pp. 40–41 (illustrated), p. 158 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
The work of Damien Hirst is known for its exploration of the territories of religion, science and death, and nowhere are these themes more clearly expressed than in the artist’s butterfly paintings, of which Observation – The Crown of Justice from 2006, is a superb example. The work featured in the critically acclaimed ‘Superstition’ exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills in 2007. The exhibition was a spectacular display of Hirst’s butterfly paintings, and marked an extension of the artist’s so-called Kaleidoscope series begun in 2003. Drawing upon the shape, colour and design of stained glass windows of the great medieval cathedrals, these works exhibit a meticulously imposed patterning and symmetry that suggest the properties of fractal geometry. In doing so, Hirst confidently invites comparison between his work and the painstaking craftsmanship used to create stained glass windows.

The contrast made between the physical nature of the work, in the sheer quantity of species of butterflies used and the geometrical patterning, and the religious connotations, is echoed in the two-part title of Observation – The Crown of Justice. As with all works in ‘Superstition’, the first part is taken from the title of a poem by Philip Larkin (mostly from his 1974 collection High Windows), a poet known for his at times bleak outlook on the human condition but also a quasi-religious transcendence, and the second drawing upon biblical and Christian evangelical phrases.

The butterfly has become a central motif of Hirst’s paintings on canvas from the start of his career in the early 1990s to the present day. During the early centuries of the Christian church, the butterfly symbolised the resurrection and life after death. Artistic depictions of butterflies have been used in cultures across the globe; in some, butterflies symbolise rebirth, and others see the butterfly as a sign of good luck or even love. Observation – The Crown of Justice strikes the viewer with a glorious burst and variety of colours, ranging from marine blues to pale yellows to reds and browns. The multifaceted composition is meticulously created solely out of butterfly wings. The rich variety of colours, shapes and sizes can be ascribed to the vast range of butterfly species used by Hirst’s studio to produce this astonishing work.

Hirst’s first butterfly painting was exhibited at the Woodstock Street Gallery in London in 1991. The exhibition, ‘In & Out of Love’, was on two levels: “In one, at street level, live butterflies work their way out of pupae hanging from monochrome white canvases; they feed on flowers in the vases below and from bowls of sugar-water placed on a table in the middle of the room. They mate, lay their eggs, and then die. On the floor below, as if in a subsequent temporal passage, some dead butterflies are stuck and amalgamated with the shiny varnish of large monochrome canvases. Instead of dishes holding nutrients, the table holds ashtrays filled with cigarette butts” (Damien Hirst, The Agony and the Ecstasy: Selected Works from 1989–2004, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, 2004).
Artist Biography
Damien Hirst
British • 1965
There is no other contemporary artist as maverick to the art market as Damien Hirst. Foremost among the Young British Artists (YBAs), a group of provocative artists who graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in the late 1980s, Hirst ascended to stardom by making objects that shocked and appalled, and that possessed conceptual depth in both profound and prankish ways.
Regarded as Britain's most notorious living artist, Hirst has studded human skulls in diamonds and submerged sharks, sheep and other dead animals in custom vitrines of formaldehyde. In tandem with Cheyenne Westphal, now Chairman of Phillips, Hirst controversially staged an entire exhibition directly for auction with 2008's "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," which collectively totalled £111 million ($198 million).
Hirst remains genre-defying and creates everything from sculpture, prints, works on paper and paintings to installation and objects. Another of his most celebrated series, the 'Pill Cabinets' present rows of intricate pills, cast individually in metal, plaster and resin, in sterilized glass and steel containers; Phillips New York showed the largest of these pieces ever exhibited in the United States, The Void, 2000, in May 2017.
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Ο◆9

Damien Hirst

Observation – The Crown of Justice

2006
Butterflies and household gloss on canvas.
280.3 × 183 cm (110 1/3 × 72 1/8 in) arch.
Signed, titled and dated ‘Damien Hirst “Crown of Justice” 2006’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠

Sold for £780,450

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

12 October 2011
London

1
Walead Beshty
20-inch Copper (FedEx® Large Kraft Box© 2005 FEDEX 330508) International Priority, Los Angeles–London trk#8685 8772 8040, date October 2–6, 2009. International Priority London–New York trk#863822956489, date November 18–20, 2009, International Priority New York–London trk#7952 0098 1790, date September 19–21, 2011
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2
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
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3
Maurizio Cattelan
Tié
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4
Tauba Auerbach
CMY 5
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5
Aaron Young
Untitled
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6
Steven Parrino
Creeping Eye
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7
This lot is no longer available.
8
Cecily Brown
The Torment of St. Anthony
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9
Damien Hirst
Observation – The Crown of Justice
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £780,450
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10
Jeff Koons
Seal Walrus Trashcans
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11
Lucio Fontana
Concetto spaziale
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12
Damien Hirst
5-Aminouracil
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13
Maurizio Cattelan
Turisti
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14
George Condo
Cave Painting
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15
Cecily Brown
Park
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16
Richard Prince
My Life as a Weapon
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17
Anselm Kiefer
Die Argonauten
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18
Anselm Kiefer
Sternenfall
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19
Paula Rego
The Servant
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20
George Condo
Two works: (i) The Departure, 2004; (ii) The Arrival, 2004
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21
Thomas Schütte
United Enemy
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22
Andreas Gursky
Copan
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23
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Ligurian Sea, Frumura
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24
Ed Ruscha
Judy
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25
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #122
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26
Sol LeWitt
5 Cubes Half-Off
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27
Richard Serra
Tracks #2
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28
Robert Motherwell
Frontier No. 12
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29
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Thin Lips
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30
Gilbert & George
Heart
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31
Johannes Kahrs
Eifer-Sucht (Jealousy)
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32
Barnaby Furnas
Flood (Red Sea)
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33
Marc Quinn
Red Lantern Cove
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34
Tom Friedman
Untitled (T.V. Sprinkles)
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35
Nicolas Pol
Specialist of Peace
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36
Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Toxic Schizophrenia
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

12 October 2011 London

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Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Damien Hirst

Ο◆9

Damien Hirst

Observation – The Crown of Justice

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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12 October 2011
London