1 year ago
88 Art handlers clasp a coating titled "La montagne Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne (estimate connected request: successful excess of $120,000,000) during a photograph telephone to contiguous the highlights from the property of the philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul G. Allen successful London connected Oct. 14, 2022.
Wiktor Szymanowicz | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Christie's sold 60 works from the Paul G. Allen Collection for implicit $1.5 cardinal Wednesday night, arsenic affluent collectors astir the satellite shrugged disconnected economical and crypto worries to put successful trophy artworks.
Five paintings broke the $100 cardinal mark, including the night's apical seller — Georges Seurat's "Les Poseuses, Ensemble," which sold for $149.2 million. Several works sold for 3 oregon 4 times their estimates, with respective artists mounting caller records astatine auction, including Vincent van Gogh, Edward Steichen and Gustav Klimt.
The income full of $1.506 cardinal shattered the erstwhile grounds for the astir costly postulation ever auctioned, acceptable by the Harry and Linda Macklowe postulation auctioned astatine Sotheby's for $922 million. The income full for the Allen postulation volition soar adjacent higher Thursday morning, erstwhile different 95 tons caput to auction.
The flurry of eight- and nine-figure income suggested that the planetary affluent inactive presumption masterpiece creation arsenic a hedge against ostentation and possibly a safer store of worth than progressively volatile stocks and crypto currencies. The merchantability came the aforesaid time that the Dow fell implicit 600 points and bitcoin plunged to its lowest levels since November 2020.
The postulation of Paul Allen, the precocious co-founder of Microsoft, was a treasure trove of masterpieces spanning 500 years. All of the proceeds volition spell to charity, since Allen signed the Giving Pledge promising to permission astatine slightest fractional of his luck to charity.
Allen's keen oculus for large creation besides made for large investments. He purchased Gustav Klimt's "Birch Forest" for $40 cardinal successful 2006, and it sold Wednesday for $104 million.
Paul Cezanne's "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" is auctioned from Paul Allen's postulation astatine Christie's successful New York connected Nov. 9, 2022.
Robert Frank | CNBC
Paul Cezanne's "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" sold for $137.8 million. Vincent van Gogh's "Verger avec Cypres," sold for $117 cardinal and acceptable a caller grounds for van Gogh astatine auction, past acceptable successful 1990. Paul Gaugin's "Maternite II" sold for $105.7 million.
Lucian Freud's "Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau)," considered 1 of his largest masterpieces, sold for $86.3 million. One of Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge" paintings went for $64.5 million.
Bidding was beardown crossed the globe, with Christie's specialists bidding connected the telephone connected behalf of clients successful Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. Several works sold for multiples of their estimates. A celebrated photograph by Edward Steichen of New York's Flatiron gathering sold for $11.8 million, making it the second-most costly photograph ever sold and smashing the $2 cardinal to $3 cardinal estimate.
An Andrew Wyeth painting, called "Day Dream" became the taxable of a heated bidding war, selling for $23.3 million, acold supra its estimation of $2 cardinal to $3 million. Despite the existent collector obsession with modern art, respective of Allen's Old Masters deed 8 figures. A Botticelli enactment called "Madonna of the Magnificat" went for $48 million.
Visitors look astatine a coating titled "Madonna of the Magnificat" by Alessandro Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli (estimate connected request: successful excess of $40,000,000) during a photograph telephone to contiguous the highlights from the property of the philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft, Paul G. Allen successful London connected Oct. 14, 2022.
Wiktor Szymanowicz | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
