Thanks to a painting by Gustav Klimt, two consecutive sales at Sotheby’s London fetched a total of £199 million ($252.9 million).
On Tuesday, Sotheby’s London organized two sales: “Now”, focusing on works and artists in the last few decades, and another sale dedicated to modern art. Across the two sales, 73 works were successfully sold. The final figure of $252.9 million is impressive because it is 30 percent more than similar auctions at Sotheby’s in June last year. The total revenues also exceeded the pre-sale low estimates of $203 million.
Gustav Klimt was undoubtedly the star of the evening. His ‘Lady With A Fan’ (1917-18) was sold for £85.3 million ($108.4 million) including fees after a 10-minute bidding war between three parties. Klimt’s sale came as a booster at a time when people were speculating that the evening would fall prey to market slowdown. In the past few months, experts have been arguing that the art market is getting slower and demand for even blue-chip art is dwindling. This seemed to be the same case for Sotheby’s evening sales, which would have otherwise managed less than $145 million from 72 lots.
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Klimt broke his own records by a narrow margin – his earlier highest-selling work was sold for $104 million in November last year. Apart from Klimt, 5 other artists made records for themselves. ‘Night Interior’ (1968) by Lucien Freud sold for $12.2 million. Less-known artists were the true winners, considerably outperforming their pre-sale high estimates. This included Leonor Feni, whose Autoportrait au turban rouge (1938–41) sold for £711,200 (almost twice its £400,000 pre-sale estimate).
