EDOUARD MANET, Le Printemps, oil on canvas, 1881, $25-35million. Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.
Edouard Manet’s Le Printemps brought a new world record at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York last night when it sold for $65 million. It had been estimated at $25-30 million. The work has been on loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington for the past 20 years. The previous record for a Manet was $33 million which was paid for a self portrait by the artist at Sotheby’s in London in 2010. The 40 lot sale brought in a total of 165,635,000.
Stele III by Alberto Giacometti made $9.9 million, Joan Miro’s Tuilerie a Mont-Roig made $8.67 million, Renoir’s Le Jeune Fille au cygnet ou la jeune fille au heron made $5.7 million, Guitare by Pablo Picasso made $5.3 million and Nu Assis, Fond Bleu by Henri Matisse sold for $5.4 million. While the record price for Manet drove the evening’s headlines, the sale was also notable for consistently high sell-through rates at the middle market level, between $500,000 and $5 million. For example, works priced in the $1-2 million range were 92% sold by lot. Similarly, works priced in the $2-5 million range were 93% sold by lot. Together, these impressive rates are an indication that collectors are seeking high-quality Impressionist and Modern art across a broad spectrum of prices.
Christie’s confirmed later that the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is the new owner of Le Printemps.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for October 20 and August 1, 2014)