Sotheby's Impressionist
and Modern art sale held in London on February 3, 2015 yielded 170,3
million GBP against a high estimate of 164 million for 46 lots sold out of 52.
The
Surrealist section comprising 18 lots out of 23 totaled on its part 16,2 million GBP
compared with a 18–26 million estimate.
The combined
sales realized 186,4 million GBP, the highest total yet for the department with
85.3 percent of lots sold.
Sotheby's guaranteed 12 lots—six of them with
irrevocable bids from a third party—that had a combined low estimate of £60.4
million which all sold for 76 million GBP.
These included two of five paintings by Claude
Monet which sold for 55,7 million GBP. The top lot was a 1908 view of Le
Grand Canal in Venice with
a £20–30 million estimate which had been
sold in 1989 for 11.5 million USD to a Japanese collector and then for 12,9
million USD in 2005. This time, it went for 23,7 million GBP.
Another Monet, Les
Peupliers à Giverny (1887), which New York's MoMA was
selling with a £9–12 million estimate fetched 10,8 million GBP.
A third Monet, L'embarcadere, a boating
scene in Holland dated 1871, sold in 1989 to a Japanese buyer for 11
million USD went for 10,2 million GBP while.
Antibes vue de la Salis (1888),
which last sold in 1999 for 5.3 million USD fetched 8.8 million GBP.
Toulouse Lautrec's Au
lit: le baiser (1892)
went to a European collector for 10.8 million GBP. A Seurat crayon drawing last
sold in Paris in the 1960s and that was a preparatory sketch for his
painting Bathers at Agniers, which hangs at the National Gallery in
London, sold for 7.7 million GBP , a record price for a work on paper by the
artist and Rodin's posthumous cast of Le Penseur, went above its
estimate for 6.3 million GBP.
Matisse's Odalisque
au fauteuil noir (1942),
which had last sold in 2004 for 6.6 million GBP rose to 15.8 million GBP while two Picasso sculptures
from the estate of dealer, Jan Krugier, which had remained unsold at Christie's
in New York in 2013 finally found bidders. The first, a wooden sculpture
of a naked boy, sold for 869,000 GBP and the second, an iron and steel maquette
for the large Tête that was made for Chicago's Civic
Centre in 1964, went for 8.9 million GBP.
A third Picasso sculpture, a hand painted terracotta of
an owl, La Chouette, set a record
for a Picasso terracotta selling for 1,265,000
GBP against a 350,00–450,000 estimate.
A 14-inch Rodin bronze, Desespoir,
Grand Modele bought in Virginia last year for 260,000 USD sold to
an Asian buyer for 785,000 GBP.
A small
Malevich self-portrait on paper sold
in London 10 years ago for 162,000 GBP culminated at 5.7 million GBP
against a high estimate of 1,5 million, a record for a work on paper by
Malevich.
Regarding the surrealist section, Magritte's L'explication sold below its estimate at 3.7 million
GBP. Oscar Dominguez's Toro
y Torero (1934-35), last sold in Paris in 2003 for 320,000 euros
rose to 1.8 million GBP and Kurt
Seligman's Witches (1950) tripled its estimate to sell
for a record 173,000 GBP.