LONDON.- In what became a historic evening at Sotheby’s London on June 24, Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection, together with the company’s annual June evening sale of Modern & Contemporary art, realised a combined £393.4m / $520.7m — the highest auction total ever achieved in a single night in Europe.
The record result was propelled by a group of masterpieces from the legendary Lewis Collection, which brought a total of £296.3m / $392.6m, well in excess of the combined pre-sale estimate for the group (£190.2-273.6m) and establishing a new record high for any single owner sale ever staged in London.
Determined bidding from around the world drove many prices to levels well in excess of pre-sale expectations, with a number of works selling for multiples of their pre-sale estimates, and with as many as eleven bidders pursuing certain lots.
The results were led by a sensuous nude by Amedeo Modigliani, sold for £48.2m / $63.9m, the highest price achieved for a work by the artist sold at auction in Europe; Gustav Klimt’s 1902 portrait of Gertrud Loew, sold for £36.2m / $47.9m; and Lucian Freud’s monumental painting of ‘benefits supervisor’ Sue Tilley, which made £29.3m / $38.8m.
Headlining the Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction was an exceptional water lily painting by Claude Monet, which sold for £40.8m / $54m, becoming the most valuable Impressionist work sold at auction in Europe in over a decade.
Key Facts & Figures
Combined Total: £393.4m / $520.7m
Estimate: £267.6-383.3m
• 10 works sold for over £10m across the two sales, including two over £40m, one over £30m, and four over £20m.
• Two auction records were set: Lot 2, Magritte, for a work on paper; and Lot 105, Moss.
Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection: £296.3m / $392.6m
Estimate: £190.2-273.6m
“It’s been thrilling to see the works we’ve enjoyed and cherished draw such crowds during the view. You know, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about letting them go, but — slightly to my surprise — even before the sale began, I felt good about it. We’ve always known we were only ever custodians of these works, and in that time we’ve tried to do our best by them, enjoying them ourselves and ensuring that, wherever possible, they were also seen and enjoyed by others. So now it feels less like letting go and more about sending them out into the world, into new homes where they can be cherished and enjoyed all over again. And I’m especially happy we chose to do this in London — the place where our journey began.”
VIVIENNE LEWIS
More than 70% of works sold achieved prices in excess of their high estimates.
The sale was led by Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu assis au collier, which brought £48.2m / $63.9m, the highest price achieved for a work by the artist sold at auction in Europe.
Deep bidding was seen particularly for René Magritte’s La Belle promenade, which attracted 11 bidders; Gustave Caillebotte’s Portrait de Paul Hugot, pursued by 9 bidders; Pablo Picasso’s Buste de femme, also pursued by 9 bidders; and Gustav Klimt’s Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi), which drew 7 bidders.
Participation came from around the world, with bidding from Asia on works by Caillebotte, Picasso, Degas, Schiele and Freud. Asian collectors acquired works including Picasso’s Baigneuses…, the Modigliani nude, Klimt’s portrait of Gertrud Loew, Freud’s Woman in a Grey Sweater, Picasso’s Angel Fernández de Soto, and another Modigliani, accounting for more than a third of the value of the sale, or over £120m.
Over the course of the 10-day preview, the exhibition welcomed more than 12,000 visitors.
Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction: £97.1m / $128.1m
Estimate: £77.4-109.7m
The result represented a 55% increase on the equivalent sale last June, which totalled £62.5m / $84m. The auction was 85% sold by lot.
There was strong Asian participation, with bidding on lots including Monet’s water lilies, Schiele, Varejão and Banksy. Asian collectors also acquired works by Hockney and Condo.
A Closer Look
Masterpieces from The Lewis Collection
Nu assis au collier, one of the most important works by Amedeo Modigliani ever to come to market, sold for £48.2m / $63.9m, the highest price achieved for the artist at auction in Europe.
A further work painted by the artist while in the South of France, Homme à la pipe (Le Notaire de Nice), sold for £23.3m / $30.9m.
Lucian Freud’s Sleeping by the Lion Carpet — entirely fresh to auction, having been held in The Lewis Collection since it was acquired from Acquavella Galleries in 1996, the year it was completed — sold for £29.3m / $38.8m. The painting is the fourth and final iteration in Freud’s series of monumental portraits of ‘benefits supervisor’ Sue Tilley.
Gustav Klimt’s ethereal full-length society portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi) was pursued by seven bidders before selling for £36.2m / $47.9m to an Asian private collector. In the last quarter century, only five major portraits by the artist — including this work — have sold at auction, each one exceeding its top estimate, often by multiple factors.
The sale opened with a flurry of bids extending over 10 minutes for Gustave Caillebotte’s Portrait de Paul Hugot — the artist’s most ambitious male portrait and one of the finest Impressionist portraits to have remained in private hands. Appearing at auction for the first time in more than 30 years, the more-than-lifesize painting sold for £10.3m / $13.6m, more than double the high estimate.
Five works by Pablo Picasso were led by the artist’s Buste de femme, acquired for the Lewis Collection in 1996 and making its auction debut, which sold for £23.9m / $31.6m. Angel Fernández de Soto, painted when Picasso was just 17 years old and an example of an early work very rarely available on the market, realised £3.8m / $5m.
Edgar Degas’ Petite Danseuse de quatorze ans pirouetted to £25.1m / $33.3m, the second highest price ever achieved at auction for the artist’s iconic bronze. Of the 27 casts produced of this work, only four other examples have ever appeared at auction.
Two Studies for Self-Portrait by Francis Bacon, which last appeared at auction in 2015, sold for £8.7m / $11.5m. An additional work by the artist, Study for Portrait, realised £4.4m / $5.8m.
Danaë, Egon Schiele’s first masterpiece, held in the Lewis Collection for almost 20 years, sold for £17.9m / $23.8m, underbid by an Asian private collector.
Exceptional works on paper also saw exceptional results. René Magritte’s La Belle promenade, one of the finest gouaches by the artist in private hands and one of only four significant bowler-hatted images to have come to auction in the last decade, sold for £16m / $21.3m, setting an auction record for a work on paper by the artist.
Henri Matisse’s charcoal Lydia (Étude pour ‘Portrait au manteau bleu’), acquired for The Lewis Collection more than 30 years ago, reached £3.8m / $5m.
Tête de femme, one of just two pastel heads by Pablo Picasso remaining in private hands from a group of five portrait heads executed in 1921 and relating to one of the artist’s most iconic Neoclassical paintings, commanded £6.2m / $8.2m.
Head of a Peasant, one of a small number of early works by Kazimir Malevich to remain in private hands, sold for £3m / $4m, more than 14 times the price it achieved when last sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London in 1993.
The sale followed the presentation of four School of London masterpieces from the Lewis Collection at Sotheby’s London in March, which doubled their combined low estimate to realise a total of £35.8m / $48m.
Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction
Claude Monet’s Nymphéas — shown in the now-legendary exhibition of the artist’s water lilies at Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1909 — saw strong competition between five bidders, including from Asia, before achieving £40.8m / $54m, the most valuable Impressionist work sold at auction in Europe in over a decade.
Two works from the distinguished collection of David and Shoshanna Wingate, New York, exceeded their estimates. Buste d’homme (New York II), a late work by Alberto Giacometti depicting the artist’s brother, sold for £1.3m / $1.8m. Ned Kelly at Glenrowan by Sidney Nolan, the most significant work by the artist to be offered at auction in London in over 30 years, realised £742,400 / $983,680.
This concluded the sale of the Wingate Collection, bringing the total to £48.4m / $50m, following the New York sales and the Design sales in New York.
Love Is In The Air (life size) — the largest and most formidable iteration of Banksy’s universally recognised image to appear on the market — sold for £6.4m / $8.5m.
An Untitled work on paper by Mark Rothko, making its auction debut and recently featured in the celebrated exhibition of the artist’s paintings on paper at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., ignited a spirited, ten-minute bidding battle before selling for £9m / $12m. This result followed strong momentum for Rothko, after Browns and Blacks in Reds achieved $85.8m in the New York May sales — the second-highest price ever realised for the artist.
Continuing the momentum for works by Egon Schiele, as seen in The Lewis Collection earlier that evening, the artist’s Tote Stadt IV (Blick über Dächer auf Häuserfassaden des Krumauer Ringplatzes) (Dead City IV (View across Roofs of Ringplatz Facades in Krumau)) made £4.5m / $5.9m in its auction debut.
Also appearing at auction for the first time, and held in the same private collection for more than 40 years, Wassily Kandinsky’s Fragment zu Improvisation II (Trauermarsch) sold for £5m / $6.7m.
A new auction record for British artist Marlow Moss was achieved with White, Yellow and Black, which realised £1.1m / $1.6m, eclipsing the artist’s previous record of £609,600 established at Sotheby’s in London last June, after strong international competition from three bidders.
Head of a Soldier by Mikhail Larionov, held in the same Swiss private collection since 1987, attracted spirited bidding, selling for £3.1m / $4.2m.
