NEW YORK.-The sale of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s New York totaled $160,931,200, the highest total for a various owners Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie’s since May 1990. The sale was 90% sold by value and 92% by lot with a stunning 82% of the lots selling within or above their estimated value. Buyers were 38% American, 47% European, 10% Asian and 5% other and four world auction records were set.

“Tonight’s sale was a triumph,” commented Christopher Burge, Honorary Chairman of Christie’s and the evening’s auctioneer. “One extraordinary price after another was set. The market is hungry for spectacular impressionist works as the smashing results for paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne and Monet indicate The sale was a shot in the arm for the impressionist market.”

Property from a Private American Collection, a superb group of paintings and sculpture brilliantly chosen over the course of just a few years, realized $41,566,400 and was 77% sold. The ensemble included the most eye-catching painting of the season, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s La blanchisseuse which was offered with a pre-sale estimate of $20 – 25 million. Recently returned from the Chicago exhibit ‘Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre’ where La Blanchisseuse took center stage, it again became a focal point tonight when it was acquired by an anonymous buyer for $22,416,000, setting a new world auction record for the artist.

One of the evening’s most iconic images was Claude Monet’s Nymphéas, painted in 1907. Few artists have interlaced their image so much with one theme and the present painting shows an exquisite rendering of the mysterious flowers which Monet turned into his hallmark. The painting realized $14,016,000, against a pre-sale estimate of $10 – 15 million.

Cézanne’s still-lifes have long been counted among the artist’s greatest achievements and the superb Pommes et Gâteaux, was a splendid example of the master’s genius and a very obvious favorite of tonight’s audience. The painting effortlessly swept by its conservative $3.5 – 4.5 pre-sale estimate, and was acquired in the room for $10,320,000. Cézanne once mentioned he wanted to astonish Paris with an apple but tonight he astonished New York.

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection offered Miró’s Le soleil rouge ronge l’araignée, a work he painted in 1948, after an eight-month stay in the United States. The work is a major statement of Miró’s mature style and it was recognized as such, realizing $7,744,000.

The sale also offered property from two private collections that will feature prominently in next week’s sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art as well. Property from the Collection of Lee V. Eastman totaled $16,475,200, was 100% sold and highlights included Alberto Giacometti’s Buste de Diego ($3,600,000); Grand nu accroupi (Olga), a bronze by Matisse ($1,472,000); and Picasso's Buste de Femme, ($6,736,000). The second collection, Property from the Collection of Edward R. Broida, achieved $8,384,000 and was led by Brancusi’s Le Baiser, a sculpture that reflected everything Brancusi wished to convey: a sense of immediacy and authenticity as well as a taste for the ‘primitive,’ achieved through its sharply stylized simplification of form. This fabulously tender statue was sold for $3,600,000. Other Broida highlights in the sale were Henri Laurens’ Le Matin which sold for $1,472,000 and Jean Arp’s Sculpture de silence, Corneille which realized $1,472,000, both setting new world auction records for the artist.

Further highlights of the evening were Picasso’s Sylvette au fauteuil vert ($8,080,000); Modigliani’s portrait, Moïse Kisling seduto ($5,616,000); Picasso’s formidable Buveuse accoudée ($6,288,000); and Fernand Léger’s Esquisse pour ‘Le Grand Dejeuner,’ ($4,832,000).