Arnout Tholinx, Inspector (circa 1656) made £3.1 million in December, a new world record for a Rembrandt print.
With projected global sales of $6.2 billion in 2025 Christie’s is ending the year on a high note. Auction sales accounted for $4.7 billion (up 8%), private sales for $1.5 billion according to figures released today by Christie’s. No less than 17 works sold privately for more that $15 million and the top three works sold by Christie’s this year were sold privately.
“The energy has returned to the saleroom, online, and across the market. We’ve seen renewed confidence worldwide, reflected in these outstanding results. Our selling performance has remained consistently strong throughout the year: a solid first half followed by an even more competitive second half, delivering exceptional, market-leading outcomes for our clients” said Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s ceo.
The Americas amounted for 41% of sales, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) 36% and Asia Pacific for 23%.
NEWELL CONVERS WYETH (1882-1945) – Wild Bill Hickok at the Cards
This painting by N C Wyeth, father of the artist Andrew Wyeth, is from the William I Koch collection to be sold by Christie’s in January. The Visions of the West sale is billed as the most valuable western American art auction in history. The low estimate is in the range of $50 million. There will be an evening sale on January 20 followed by a high noon sale on January 21 at the Rockefeller Center in New York. The auctions will offer an array of American western art, including masterworks by Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, and Charles Marion Russell. The Remingtons, featuring 16 rare and important sculptures, as well as some of his greatest paintings, are particularly noteworthy. William I Koch is known as a collector, industrialist, scientist, winner of the America’s Cup and more. The Wyeth is estimated at $1 million – $1.5 million.
Great depth of bidding, numerous artist records, and palpable energy marked the opening night of Christie’s Marquee Week in New York, where the auction house achieved exceptional results for two premier sales: The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis and the 20th Century Evening Sale. In a packed, energetic saleroom at Rockefeller Center, and with active online bidders, the two sales achieved a total of $689,795,000 million, were 96% sold by lot, 97% sold by value.
The top lot of the evening was Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) from the Weis collection. It work sold for $62,160,000 to a bidder on the phone after a fierce four-minute and 40-second bidding battle—also securing the highest online bid ever for a live auction at Christie’s. Another highlight of the collection was La Lecture, a portrait of Marie-Therese by Pablo Picasso which made $45,485,000.
The top lot from the 20th Century Evening sale was Claude Monet’s Nymphéas from the collection of Japan’s Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. It made $45,485,000
GERRIT DOU (LEIDEN 1613-1675) – The Flute Player UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £3,832,000 (€4,353,152).
With an estimate of £2-£3 million The Flute Player by Gerrit Dou will lead Christie’s Old Masters sale in London on December 2. Dou, like his teacher Rembrandt, was among the most successful Dutch artists of the seventeenth century, attracting patrons such as Cosimo III de’ Medici, and with works presented to Charles II of England. An early masterpiece from his relatively small and highly sought-after oeuvre, this vanitas – a still-life charged with symbolic meaning – alludes to music, learning and the brevity of life. Painted with microscopic detail and an enamel-like finish that conceals all trace of the brush, it exemplifies the extraordinary technical precision that made Dou one of the most acclaimed painters of his age. The picture has been in a celebrated English collection for 125 years, having belonged to William Proby, 5th Earl of Carysfort (1836–1909) at Elton Hall by 1900. It has remained in the family since.
Christie’s achieved the world auction record for Gerrit Dou in 2023 with A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window, which achieved $7 million in theRothschild Masterpieces sale.
Spike, Caenagnathid dinosaur, Late Cretaceous (c. 68 million years ago). (£3,000,000–5,000,000).
Spike an exceptionally preserved dinosaur and one of the most complete Caenagnathid specimens ever discovered will headline Christie’s inauguralGroundbreakers: Icons of Our Time auction in London on December 11. A discovery from the 2022 field season Spike, comprises approximately 100 preserved fossil bones that tell the story of a sub-adult dinosaur that is 68 million years in the making. It has recently been determined that this family of dinosaurs were heavily feathered, and a rare marking on Spike’s wrist might be further evidence of this. Since the first Caenagnathid was published in 1940, only a handful of comparable specimens have been discovered – and none have ever come to auction.
This sale presents a curated selection of 30 lots spanning natural history, cinema, music, literature, fashion, and technology. Highlights range from personal letters by cultural icons, to rare scientific artifacts, historic musical instruments, and pioneering design pieces.
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $236.4 MILLION
With Klimt, Calder, Kahlo, Magritte, Rothko and Van Gogh among headliners at sales by Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York this month the global art market is not short of exciting promise. Leading lights like this ensure that the market for art will never be dull even when it is in a state of flux.
There is resilience in the face of global uncertainty and looming threats like war, inflation and market collapse. The November sales have been carefully assembled. Many of the major works on offer have been exhibited at leading museums or come from major collections like that of Leonard Lauder at Sotheby’s. This reflects the fact that the focus of the market is less speculative than in headier times.
A masterpiece by Klimt – the striking full length ‘Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer’ – leads the auction series and could bring in as much as $150 million. The sale of the Lauder collection on November 18, described by the auctioneers as a once in a generation collection of 20th century masterpieces, will inaugurate Sotheby’s new global headquarters at the Breuer Building, formerly the Whitney Museum. The cosmetics magnate, who died aged 92 last June, donated around $1 billion worth of Cubist art to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Painted Wood by Alexander Calder at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $20,415,000
Painted Wood, the most significant constellation work by Alexander Calder, is a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale on November 17. Measuring nearly seven feet in height and width it is the largest of his early painted wood mobiles to come to auction. The wood, string, wire and paint construction made in 1943 is guiding at $15 million – $20 million (€17.25 million – €25.87 million) the highest ever auction estimate for a Calder.
Sotheby’s will offer the Cindy and Jay Pritzker collection of Modern and Impressionist art with Van Gogh’s Romans parisiennes (Les Livres jaunes) – Parisian novels (the yellow books) – from 1887 at its heart. The collection features a monumental triptych by Matisse of Leda and the Swan and a Pont-Aven canvas by Gauguin. Frieda Kahlo’s psychologically charged El sueno (La cama) – The Dream (the bed) – is an intimate meditation on identity and mortality from an important private collection of Surrealist art. There are pioneering visions by Dorothea Tanning, Kay Sage, Remedios Varo and Valentine Hugo and other artists whose work expanded the range of Surrealism.
Frieda Kahlo El Sueno (La Cama) – The Dream (the bed) at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $54.7 MILLION
Picasso, Mondrian, Rothko, Matisse, Franz Kline, Miro, Max Ernst and Braque feature in the Weis collection in a dedicated sale at Christie’s on November 17. This will precede the 20th century evening auction celebrating vangard artists from the Parisian studios of the Impressionists to the downtown lofts of post war New York. The sale offers masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Chagall, Picasso, Leger, Calder, Richard Diebenkorn and David Hockney with monumental sculptures by Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi and David Smith.
The 21st century evening sale at Christie’s on November 19 offers masterworks from the past 60 years including standout works by Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol.
Piet Mondrian – Composition with red and blue 1939-1941 from the Weis collection at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE $23,060,000
A Family of Cheetahs in a Rocky Landscape, attributed to Basawan made £10.2 million.
There was a world record for a Mughal painting at Christie’s when this c1575-80 painting attributed to Basawan made £10.2 million (€11.6 million). This was 14 times over estimate. The auction of exceptional paintings from the personal collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan achieved £45.7 million (€52.2 million) and was 100% sold.
Apples and Pear by Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940) UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £171,450
The gem like Apples and Pear by Roderic O’Conor at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art evening sale in London on October 22 epitomises his use of colour, texture and strong stripes. The painting featured at the O’Conor retrospective at the National Gallery in 2018. It dates to around 1893 and Christie’s say that opportunities to acquire a work so emblematic of its period and of O’Conor’s oeuvre arise infrequently. The estimate is £120,000-£180,000 (€137,900-€206,890).
Peter Doig – Ski Jacket (1994) sold for €16,381,960
The highest total for a Frieze Week sale in London in seven years was achieved last night when Christie’s London evening sale made £106,925,400. Peter Doig’s Ski Jacket was the top lot of the evening making £16.3 million against an estimate of £6/8million and there was world records for Paula Rego, Suzanne Valadon, Annie Morris and Esben Weile Kjær. Peter Doig’s Country Rock made £9.2 million, Lucian Freud’s Self Portrait fragment made £7.6 million, Gerhard Richter’s Tulpen made £6.1 million and Cezanne’s Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier made £5.5 million.
PAULA REGO (1935-2022) – Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s Fantasia made £3.4 million.
FRANZ WEST (1947-2012) – BLUE LUCK. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £285,750
Franz West began producing his beloved large-scale, brightly painted tubular and bulbous sculptures in the mid-1990s, initially in welded sheets of aluminium and later in fibreglass. Many of them include places to sit. Blue Luck, constructed of fibreglass, epoxy resin and lacquer, is lot 31 at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale in London on October 15 with an estimate of £300,000-£500,000. The sale offers revolutions in art making from Impressionism to Modernism with art by Paul Cezanne, Paul Signac, Lucian Freud, Gerhard Richter, Paul Rego, Peter Doig, Chris Ofili and Jean Michel Basquiat among the 61 lots on offer.
