Interior, Strandgade 30 was pursued by four bidders on the telephone and sold to an US private collector. The sum exceeded the previous high for a Hammershøi which was the £1.5m for Ida Reading a Letter which sold in the same rooms in June 2012. The price was also a record for any Danish work of art at auction.
The picture appeared in a sale of 19th century European paintings in New Bond Street on May 21 with an estimate of £700,000-900,000.
Claude Piening, senior director of Sotheby's 19th Century European paintings department, said: "Bidding was international, with interest from Scandinavia, North America and South America. Hammershøi appeals to the tastes of the 21st-century collector."
The picture itself was a 20¼ x 22¼in (52 x 57cm) oil on canvas painted c.1905 and was signed with initials in the lower right. It was acquired directly from the artist and had remained in the collection of the same family ever since.
Key Setting
The subject of the painting was a view of Hammershøi's home in Copenhagen, where the artist and his wife Ida lived from 1899 to 1909. The setting was used for many of Hammershøi's most important interiors which are the favoured works on the current market.
The small living room shown here, situated at the back of their first-floor apartment with its window overlooking the courtyard, was a motif that fascinated the artist throughout his decade at the address. The composition was the basis of at least nine significant oils, five of which are in public collections in Scandinavia, London and New York, including Moonlight, Strandgade 30 which was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012.
Commenting on the artist's growing appeal, Nina Wedell-Wedellsborg, head of Sotheby's Denmark, said: "Hammershøi is an artist whom Danish people hold close to their hearts. But with his ascent to international status through recent high-profile exhibitions, record-breaking prices at auction, and his unique aesthetic that finds resonance among collectors of both Old Masters and Modern and Contemporary art, he has been embraced around the world, in academic circles, among art collectors, and also by the wider public."
