The Pauline Karpidas auction at Sotheby’s fetched $100 million with a ‘white glove’ status – far beyond initial expectations.
On Wednesday night, Sotheby’s hosted an auction of 55 items from the collection of Pauline Karpidas. Wife of Greek business magnate Constatinos Karpidas, Pualine built her collection – and her close relationship with artists like Andy Warhol – over a period of more than 50 years. Last month, it was announced that a huge part of the collection, which includes paintings, sculptures, and furniture, would head to Sotheby’s. The first of the auctions occurred on Wednesday, when 55 items from the Pauline Karpidas collection went to the auction block with a $53 million high estimate.
What happened next took everyone by surprise. Almost from the get-go, works started getting sold at more than double their presale estimates. This included Tête by René Magritte, which sold for $1.2 million (against $680,000 estimate), and Warhol’s The Scream (After Munch), which was sold for $9 million, more than double its high estimate. The works of Claude LaLanne were especially sought after. Nine LaLanne works were sold for a combined figure of $18.5 million, more than 5 times their presale estimate of $3.5 million. In fact, more than seventy percent of the sold works exceeded their estimates. One of the few works that didn’t was Magritte’s La Statue Volante (1958), which went in with high expectations of $16.3 million but only managed to bring $13 million.
By the end of the night, the auction managed to fetch $100 million, including fees, almost double its initial estimates. Moreover, the auction achieved a ‘white glove’ status since every single work on the block was sold. The remaining works from the Pauline Karpidas collection would be sold via an e-auction (which closes Friday) and another auction with 193 lots on Thursday. If they continue the momentum, the total figure could easily cross $150 million. The amazing performance of the collection bears resemblance to the 2022 peak of the global art market and comes as a reprieve for Sotheby’s, which had lately struggled with poor auctions and staff layoffs.
