Amadeo Mogliani’s Nu assis au collier sold for a record £48.2 million at Sotheby’s tonight. This was a new European record for the artist. The collection of billionaire Joe Lewis achieved £296.3 million to become the highest single owner collection ever sold in London. A 1995 nude by Lucian Freud, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet made £29.3 million and a portrait of Gertrud Loew by Gustave Klimt sold for £36.2 million. Magritte’s La Belle Promenade, with a high estimate of £4 million, sold for £16 million, a record for a work on paper by the artist. Joe Lewis, former owner of Tottenham Hotspur football club, built up the collection with his daughter Vivienne.
The Modern and Contemporary auction followed at Sotheby’s. Claude Monet’s Nymphéas was the top lot, selling for £40.7 million.
Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection and the Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction achieved a combined total of £393.4 million – the highest auction total ever achieved in a single night in Europe.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for June 19, June 13, June 7 and May 1, 2026)
