Sotheby's London concluded their four-week major summer sale series which totalled in excess of £365 / $589 / €408 million. Sotheby's achieved the two highest prices across the entire London summer auction season and overall 49 artist records were set, with 66 works selling for over £1 million and 95 selling for over $1 million.
The Contemporary Art Auction, including the Duerckheim Collection, achieved the highest total ever for a contemporary art auction in London. The Evill/Frost Collection achieved the highest total ever for a sale of 20th Century British Art, and Sotheby's established the second highest auction price ever for an old master painting.
Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Evening Sale brought the extraordinary total of £108,803,550 / $174,129,201 /€120,923,897 – in excess of pre-sale expectations (estimate: £74-105 million) and establishing the highest total ever achieved for any sale of Contemporary Art in London. Buyers from 14 countries participated in the auction, which achieved remarkable sell-through rates of 89.8% by lot and 93.9% by value and established five new artist records. Twenty-nine works sold for over £1 million, and 45 lots sold for over $1 million.
The Duerckheim Collection - the greatest offering of German Art of the 1960s and 1970s ever to come to market - realised £60,401,650 / $96,666,801 / €67,130,189, almost doubling the low estimate of £31.8-45.9 million, with almost every lot contested by multiple bidders. A further 25 lots from the collection will be offered in the June 30 Contemporary Art Day Sale.
Sotheby's London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale was led by Francesco Guardi's monumental masterpiece Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, which established the highest price of the week of the London Old Master Sales when it sold for an astonishing £26,697,250 / $42,865,105 / €29,834,146 (est. £15-25 million). The highest price for any work of art sold at an international auction house in 2011, a record for any Venetian view painting at auction, as well as a record for the artist's work, the painting was sought after by two determined bidders and finally sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. Overall the sale achieved a total of £47,640,900 / $76,492,229 / €53,238,651 (pre-sale est. £31,110,000-48,120,000), with an average lot value for the works sold of £952,818. The sale was 68.5% sold by lot and 91.6% sold by value.
Sotheby's recent landmark sale of The Evill/Frost Collection, the most prestigious collection of 20th Century British Art ever to come to the market, strengthened the department's status as International Market Leaders. The 2 part sale of Fine Art from the collection totalled a record breaking £39million, the highest ever total for a sale of 20th Century British Art. Excitingly, 8 new world auction records were broken for artists such as Sir Stanley Spencer (Sunflower and Dog Worship, £5,417,250), Edward Burra ( Zoot Suits, £2,057, 250), Graham Sutherland (The Crucifixion, £713,250), Patrick Heron (The Blue Table with Window: 1954, £1,049), as well as a record for a Lucian Freud work on paper (Beach Scene with a Boat, £2,617,250).
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