Blue Ivy Carter’s got 99 problems, but a bid ain’t one. The six-year-old daughter of Jay-Z and Beyoncé was bidding up a storm at the Wearable Art Gala at the Waco Theater Center in Los Angeles this past weekend, where she bought a $10,000 work by Samuel Levi Jones, titled Composed, which was made from deconstructed law and medical books.
Jay-Z retrieved the paddle, however, before his daughter could top Tyler Perry’s $20,000 bid for Young Sidney, Tiffanie Anderson’s painting of filmmaker Sidney Poitier. The young collector was the underbidder at $19,000, Vanity Fair reported.
At one point during the event, auctioneer Star Jones explained Blue Ivy’s burgeoning interest in art. “Her mother and father have been talking about how you gather art and that is a big deal for African Americans,” she told the crowd.
The family also walked away with a set of 18-karat black gold and white diamond black panther earrings by Lorraine Schwartz. Beyoncé, who had previously worn the ornate jewelry, which was valued at $40,000, placed the winning bid at $17,000.
The singer and her daughter donned matching golden ensembles for the event, which which was held in honor of Beyoncé and hosted by her grandmother, Tina Knowles Lawson. For a dress code inspired by the fictional African country of Wakanda from the hit Marvel film Black Panther, design house Falguni Shane Peacock made the singer’s custom gown.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s art collection is known to include works by David Hammons and Richard Prince. The couple hired artist Awol Erizku to shoot their pregnancy announcement photographs in 2017, and to photograph them at the Louvre during a 2014 trip to Paris. A photo of the stars in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is credited with helping popularize the art selfie trend.