News

An oil painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian sold for a record $50.6m (£32.1m) against a high estimate of 25 million at an auction held on May 15, 2015 by Christie's in New York.

The 1929 piece titled Composition No III, with Red, Blue, Yellow and Black exhaled the geometric style for which the artist became renowned. Mondrian's previous auction record was $27.6m (£17.5m) set in 2009 in Paris by.Christie's. The piece last came to auction exactly 18 years ago to the day at the same house when it sold for $3.8 million.

Christie's sale of Impressionist and modern art totaled $202 million with 93% of lots sold, adding to the impressive amount of  $1.7 billion recorded during  various auctions during the past week.

During the sale, Brancusi's plaster head, La Muse Endormie I (1912), sold for  8 million USD at its low estimate..

The two Monet paintings Les meules à Giverny and Paysage du Matin respectively sold  for 16.4 million USD (inclusive of premium) and 4.53 million.

The same client who bought Paysage de matin also purchased Amedeo Modigliani's portrait of the  bisexual writer Beatrice Hastings for 16.1 million USD with premium) while a painting by Fernand Léger  fetched 17 million.