Henry Moore (1898-1986) Reclining Figure: Festival made a world record price of £19,081,250 at Christie's. Image courtesty Christie's Images Ltd., 2012.
There was a world record price for the English sculpture and artist Henry Moore at Christie’s in London on February 7. His Reclining Figure, Festival – bronze with dark brown patina – sold for £19,081,250. Conceived in 1951 and cast in an edition of five plus one artist’s proof it measures 96¼ inches in length. From a private New York collection it had been estimated at £3.5-5.5 million. It was bought in the room by Cologne dealer Alex Lachmann.
Another world record price was established for the Spanish artist Joan Miro when his painting poem was knocked down for £16,841,250.
A van Gogh previously owned by Elizabeth Taylor – Vue de l’Asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy” – made £10.1 million over an estimate of £5-7 million. When the late actresses art was sold in London this week it brought the final tally for her complete collection including jewellery and couture to £117.2 million. (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 17, 2012.)
The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale and the auction of Art of the Surreal at Christie’s and realised £134,999,400, selling 86% by lot and 93% by value. The pre-sale estimate was £86.2-127.1 million. Buyer’s were from 21 countries in four continents. Three lots sold for over £10 million and 28 lots made over £1 million.
Giovanna Bertazzoni, International Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s said: “These strong results illustrate that the art market continues to attract significant levels of spending, particularly for the rarest and most exceptional works of art. It is an extremely intelligent market where pricing is key – and where collectors react with the greatest determination to the rarest works of art, and particularly to those which are fresh to the market. We are particularly pleased to have established record prices for two great artists of the 20th century: Henry Moore and Joan Miró. In both cases, we offered works of art that were among the greatest produced by the artists, and their quality drew the most determined of bidding”.