PARIS.- Christie’s is preparing an ambitious week of Modern and Contemporary art sales in Paris this October, bringing together major private collections, fresh-to-market works and a broad sweep of art from Impressionism to the post-war period.
The Paris programme, running from October 16 to 23 during Art Basel Paris, forms part of Christie’s wider autumn 20th- and 21st-century season, which begins in London with its traditional 20/21 Marquee Week from October 14 to 16. In Paris, the auction house will stage four sales centered on important international collections and works that have remained outside the market for years.

Among the collections taking center stage are those connected with the Durand-Ruel family, Antonio Homem Sonnabend, Marlene and Spencer Hays, and the group known as Radiant Modernism. Works from these collections are being offered across London, Paris and New York, underscoring the international scope of Christie’s autumn season.

One of the week’s defining moments will come on October 22 with Durand-Ruel. Generations of Vision, a sale devoted to works once owned by the legendary art-dealing dynasty. Paul Durand-Ruel played a decisive role in the history of Impressionism, and the family collection includes works that have remained with his descendants for generations.

Leading the sale is Claude Monet’s Bord des falaises à Pourville, estimated at €11 million to €15 million. The painting has remained in the Durand-Ruel family for more than 140 years and dates from one of the most sought-after periods of Monet’s career. It will be joined by Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Jeunes filles au bord de la mer, estimated at €4 million to €6 million; Camille Pissarro’s Le Louvre, soleil d’hiver, matin, at €2 million to €3 million; and Alfred Sisley’s La route du Cœur-Volant en hiver, Louveciennes, at €2.5 million to €3.5 million.





Later that day, Christie’s flagship Paris Evening Sale will move across more than a century of artistic production. Among its most anticipated works is an untitled 1957 painting by Joan Mitchell, estimated at €5 million to €7 million and appearing at auction for the first time. The sale also includes Paul Signac’s Saint-Cloud, Gustave Caillebotte’s Bateaux à l’ancre sur la Seine, Fernand Léger’s Composition aux trois figures, works by Edgar Degas and Édouard Vuillard from the Hays collection, and Jeff Koons’s Ode to Love from the Antonio Homem Sonnabend Collection.

Italian art will also have a particularly strong presence through the latest edition of Christie’s Thinking Italian, which marks 25 years of the auction house’s focus on the category. The group includes Amedeo Modigliani’s Minoutcha, estimated at €5 million to €7 million, and Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Mezzogiorno in Piazza S. Marco, estimated at €5.5 million to €7.5 million.

Other highlights include Giorgio de Chirico’s Les tragédiens d’Eschyle, dating from 1925, Alighiero Boetti’s eleven-canvas work Ononimo from 1973, another Fontana, Concetto spaziale, Attese rose, as well as works by Mario Schifano and Alberto Burri.

The following day, October 23, Christie’s will turn back toward Impressionism and early Modernism with its Art Moderne sale. The auction will include around 30 works from the Durand-Ruel Collection, 39 lots from the Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection and 28 lots from Radiant Modernism.

Among the works on offer are Renoir’s Plage du Pornic, estimated at €500,000 to €700,000, and Cap d’Antibes, estimated at €350,000 to €550,000. Christie’s notes that Cap d’Antibes was spoliated from collector Jakob Goldschmidt and is being offered following a restitution agreement with his heirs in 2026. The auction will also include Picasso’s Grand Vase aux danseurs, estimated at €320,000 to €500,000, along with works by Gustave Loiseau, Eugène Boudin, Henry Moret and Paul Signac.

The week concludes with a Contemporary Art sale on the afternoon of October 23. A substantial group of works from the Antonio Homem Sonnabend Collection will feature prominently, including pieces by Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, Anselm Kiefer and Jean Dubuffet.





Also among the highlights are two works by Josef Albers from the Study for Homage to the Square series, Alexander Calder’s Standing Mobile from the 1950s and Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild from 1992, estimated at €300,000 to €500,000. Works by Anna-Eva Bergman, Keith Haring, Salvatore Scarpitta, Piero Dorazio and Fabienne Verdier will also be included.

Beyond the auctions themselves, Christie’s is turning its Avenue Matignon galleries into a broader public programme during Paris Art Week. The auction house plans museum-style exhibitions, videos distributed across social platforms and an immersive virtual-reality presentation of the Durand-Ruel collection. A public evening event on October 19 will bring together galleries and art-world figures from the Matignon-Saint-Honoré district, while a temporary café will operate inside Christie’s Paris galleries throughout the week.

Taken together, the October sales show Christie’s placing provenance and collection history at the center of its Paris season. Rather than presenting the week simply as a sequence of high-value auctions, the programme connects works with the collectors, dealers and families who shaped their journeys—sometimes for more than a century.