On a night that saw a new world record for the most expensive artwork sold at auction, Christie’s May 4 Impressionist and Modern art evening sale achieved a total of $335,548,000. The evening was highlighted by the runaway success of Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” from the collection of Mrs Sidney F. Brody, which sold for a record $106,482,500, breaking the previous world record for any work of art sold at auction.
The evening sale portion of the Brody collection also became the highest total for a single-owner sale offered at Christie’s New York, surpassing the landmark sale of the collection of Victor and Sally Ganz in 1997. The 27 lots from the Brody collection offered in the evening sale achieved $224,177,500 and were 100 percent sold by lot and value. Overall, 30 lots sold above the $1 million mark and nine lots sold above the $10 million mark. Buyers in the sale were 36 percent American, 36 percent European, 4 percent Asian and 24 percent other.
Following the evening sale, the firm reported a near-perfect record for the complete sale of the Brody collection, including an additional 52 items offered in the May 5 Impressionist and Modern works on paper sale. All but one lot in the Brody collection of 79 lots was sold, bringing the final tally to $225,899,900, with sell-through rates of 99 percent by lot and 99 percent by value.
In all, the sales series of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s totaled $360,029,725. Wednesday’s works on paper and day sales totaled $24,481,725, with 84 percent of lots sold and 81 percent sold by value. The top lot was the sale’s cover image, Paul Klee’s “Reifendes Wachstum (Ripening Growth),” a watercolor and collage work from 1921, which sold for $1,142,500.
The star lot of the evening sale, and the most anticipated work to come to market from private hands in the last decade, was “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” a sensuous and stunning masterpiece from Picasso’s celebrated 1932 series of paintings depicting his muse and mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. Referred to as the “lost” 1932 Picasso because it had never before been published in color, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” was acquired by the Brodys in 1950 for $17,000 from the art dealer Paul Rosenberg. It had been exhibited in public only once since its purchase, at a 1961 exhibition sponsored by the UCLA Art Council. At the auction, eight bidders competed for the Brody Picasso, as Christie’s lead auctioneer and honorary chairman Christopher Burge started the bidding at the $58 million mark.
Burge took bids from within the saleroom and on the phone before the competition settled down to two bidders at the $88 million mark and a one-on-one battle ensued. Finally, at 7:32 pm †nine minutes after the bidding opened †the final bid was hammered down and a new world record for the most expensive artwork at auction was sealed at $106,482,500.
Additional top lots from the Brody collection included Modern sculpture. Two Giacometti bronzes proved the continuing appeal of the artist †and sculpture as a medium †to collectors at the sale. Giacometti’s lean, stealthy “Le chat” sold for $20,802,500, while the artist’s “Grande tête mince” †the most highly-prized of the artist’s busts †realized $53,282,500, well above its high estimate.
A new world auction record for a work by Georges Braque was achieved with the sale of “La treille,” a large-format scene of a terrace garden covered in twisting vines, that sold for $10,162,500, soaring well above its estimate of $3/5 million. The jewel-like “Autoportrait” by Edouard Vuillard, a superb early self-portrait executed just after 1890, fetched $2,658,500, also clearing its high estimate. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Brody collection will be donated to the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif., where the late Mrs Brody was a guiding patron.
The various owners’ portion of the sale yielded four more prices above the $10 million mark for works by Giacometti, Picasso and Renoir, as well as a new world auction record for Raffaelli. The top lot of the section was a stunning 1947 sculpture of a human hand by Giacometti, “La Main,” which sold for $25,842,500.
Two further works by Pablo Picasso also sold above expectations as “Femme au chat assise dans un fauteuil,” 1964, realized $18,002,500 and another work of the same year, “Le peintre et son modèle,” 1964, sold for $10,722,500.
Top prices were achieved for two works from the collection of Raymond and Miriam Klein, a private collection owned by the late Philadelphia philanthropists. “Femme nue couchée, Gabrielle” by Renoir, a sumptuous, life-size reclining nude, realized $10,162,500. A new record was achieved for a work by Raffaelli with “Les buveurs d’absinthe (Les Déclassés),” an early Impressionist masterwork that is widely regarded as one of the artist’s most important and accomplished paintings.
The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco acquired the work for the museum’s permanent collection.
Prices reported include the buyer’s premium. For information, 212-636-2000 or www.Christies.com .
