Blog #11. Catherineabramsartworks.com
On November 9th in New York the auction of Paul G.Allen's collection "Visionary" at Christie's made history as the biggest sale in auction history surpassing $1,506,386,000.
Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), 1888. 15½ x 19¾ in (39.3 x 50 cm). Sold for $149,240,000.
Allen personally selected all the works, which span more than 500 years, rather than relying on an art buyers to pick them out as some billionaires do.
“When you look at a painting you’re looking into a different country, into someone else’s imagination, how they saw it,” Allen said when some of his collection went on show in 2016.
Several of the winning bids smashed previous records for individual artists and many exceeded the expected sales prices estimated by Christie’s.
Before Wednesday’s sale, Christie’s said it was “poised to be the largest and most exceptional art auction in history”, eclipsing the $922m achieved by the sale of the Macklowe collection in May, after the divorce of the property tycoon Harry Macklowe from his wife, Linda.
Among the priciest works sold was Pointillist pioneer Georges Seurat’s Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), an 1888 oil on canvas depicting three nude women. It fetched $149.2m including fees, a record for a Seurat piece.
Cézanne’s La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a colourful landscape painted from 1888-1890, sold for $137.8m, another record. And a Gustav Klimt 1903 painting, Birch Forest, set the high mark for a Klimt work, selling for $104.6m.
Here is a video of the auction
https://youtu.be/uoA5uwRf-5Y
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