Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps sold for £19.9 million – almost 5 times previous record.
Van Gogh’s L’Homme est en mer sold for £16.9 million.
A £19.9 million Pissarro, the highest price for a Van Gogh at auction in London for 25 years and the sale of every masterpiece from the Jan Krugier collection for prices above the top estimate added up to a soaring evening at Sotheby’s. Records tumbled at the Impressionist and Modern Art sale on February 5. Camille Pissarro’s Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps, a restituted masterpiece sold for five times the previous record for the artist. Meantime seven bidders competed for Van Gogh’s L’Homme est en mer, which was eventually knocked down for £16.9 million. The collection of legendary gallerist Jan Krugier brought in a combined total of £53.3 million. The sale saw record prices for a print by Picasso, a work on paper by Giacometti and a work on paper by Bonnard.
The sale realised £163,461,500. (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for Monday, December 23, 2013).