Claude Monet’s Impressionist masterpiece, ‘Water Lily Pond,’ has fetched $74 million at an auction in New York.
Christie’s, the auction house owned by French billionaire François Pinault’s Artémis holding company, saw sales totalling $640 million in one evening.
Christie’s and its rival, Sotheby’s, owned by Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, are currently in the thick of the autumn auction season, which runs from 7 to 15 November.
Auction houses look set for record-breaking autumn
Together, the two auction houses hope to break records and generate billions in sales.
Sotheby’s, having previously sold a Picasso (‘Woman with a Watch’ – 1932) for $139 million, has already raised more than $400 million in auction sales this week. Christie’s has amassed $748 million, including $640 million from Thursday evening alone.
Since 2017, this has been the highest total for a single evening of sales of works of art belonging to different collectors, according to a statement from Christie’s.
The star lot of the night, Claude Monet’s ‘Water Lily Pond’ (1917-1919), had an estimated value of $65 million but was sold for $74 million.
Veteran auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen takes a final bow
It was the final auction at Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center for Christie’s star auctioneer and International House President, Jussi Pylkkänen, who announced his departure following a career spanning four decades.
Pylkkänen received a standing ovation from the wealthy art collectors and enthusiasts in the packed, ultra-chic room.
Three paintings by Paul Cézanne, including ‘Fruits and Pot of Ginger,’ which was sold for nearly $39 million, were auctioned for the benefit of the Langmatt Museum in Baden, Switzerland.
“The sale – a last resort solution – was a painful step for us,” Markus Stegmann, director of the financially-struggling museum, admitted in a statement.
Individual records
Following the sale proceeds, Langmatt’s future is secured, said a statement from the museum, which houses a stellar collection of about 50 remarkable works by Gauguin, Renoir, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Degas, and Cassatt. The museum retains six Cézanne pieces.
Individual records were also set on Thursday evening. Richard Diebenkornn’s piece, ‘Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad,’ sold for $46 million, and Joan Mitchell’s ‘Untitled’ went for $29 million.
In a time of international crises, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have been enjoying the robust health of the art and luxury market. Driven by demand in China and other parts of Asia, there are no signs of a slowdown after an exceptional 2022, with over $16 billion in cumulative sales.
