The six works came from two separate European vendors and together represented one of the best groups by the Catalan artist to have appeared at auction. On the night, five of them sold for a combined hammer total of £28.85m.
The top lot of the sale was Miró's Painting (Women, Moon, Birds), a 1950 canvas which was executed during the artist's fertile post-War period. The vendor's family had acquired the 3ft 9in x 4ft 10in (1.14 x 1.46m) oil on canvas in 1963 and it appeared here with a £4m-7m estimate.
After a lengthy competition on February 4, it was eventually knocked down to a phone buyer at £13.8m, the third highest price at auction for the artist, with the record standing at £21m for the earlier Peinture (Étoile Bleue) which sold at Sotheby's in June 2012.
From a separate source came Miró's L'oiseau au plumage déployé vole vers l'arbre argenté from 1953 which sold at a mid-estimate £8.1m. The vendor had acquired it at Sotheby's in February 2006 for a premium-inclusive £5.16m.
The same collection had provided Christie's with Francis Bacon's Seated Figure (Red Cardinal) which sold for $45m (£28m) in New York in November.
Overall, the sale generated a premium-inclusive total of £147m from 80 lots, of which 70 found buyers (88%).
Courtauld's Cézanne
Another highlight was Paul Cézanne's Vue sur L'Estaque et le Château d'If which was appearing on the market for the first time since it was acquired in 1936 by Samuel Courtauld, the founder of the Courtauld Gallery and Institute of Art in London.
It was offered at Christie's evening sale and was estimated at £8-12m. At the auction, it drew multiple bidders including two New York dealers in the room, one of whom secured it at £12m.
The 2ft 4in x 23.5in (73 x 60cm) oil on canvas dated from c.1883-85 and was painted on one of the artist's last visits to L'Estaque, a fishing port and small seaside resort in his native Provence.
