1. Sotheby’s auctioneer Henry Wyndham on the rostrum at Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art evening sales
Sotheby’s auctioneer Henry Wyndham on the rostrum at Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art evening sales held in London on February 3. The sale posted a premium-inclusive total of £93.7m with 38 of the 53 lots selling (72%).
2. Pablo Picasso's Tête de femme
Pablo Picasso's Tête de femme from 1935 was the top price at Sotheby's evening sale of Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art on February 3. It was knocked down to a private collector for £16.7m, a sum towards the lower end of its £16m-20m estimate.
The 2ft 2in x 21in (65 x 54cm) oil on canvas depicted his mistress Marie-Terese Walter. The sum fetched was the highest price of the Impressionist & Modern sales.
3. Auguste Rodin’s Iris
Auguste Rodin’s Iris, a 2ft 9in (82.9 cm) high bronze that sold at £10.2m hammer at the Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art sale on February 3. The statue, once owned by Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone, was cast during the artist’s lifetime, which contributed significantly to the price achieved.
The same cast last appeared at auction in 2007 at Sotheby's London, when it sold for a then-record £4.6m.
Sculpture performed well throughout the Sotheby’s sale, with 9 of 10 pieces on offer sold, fetching combined total of £17.1m.
4. Claude Monet’s Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur
Claude Monet’s Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur from 1908 sold for £11.6, with premium at Sotheby’s, a sum below the £12-18m estimate.
Knocked down to a European collector, it was one of the artist’s 36 pictures of Venice, half of which now reside in museum collections.
5. Henri Matisse’s La Leçon de piano
Henri Matisse’s La Leçon de piano which sold for £10.8m including premium to a US dealer at Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art evening sale on February 3. The estimate was £12m-18m.
The oil on canvas painted in 1923 came to auction after having spent 85 years in a private collection. Combining music and art, two of the artist’s main passions, the intimate work was one of the interior compositions from Matisse’s early Nice period.
6. Francis Picabia’s Le Ventilateur
Francis Picabia’s Le Ventilateur that sold for £2.4m with premium at Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern & Surrealist Art evening sale on February 3. The oil on cardboard painted c.1918 was estimated at £1.8m-2.5m and the sum fetched was a record for the artist in this medium.
It was an example of Picabia’s rare and influential machinist compositions from his Dada period. Here a ventilation machine is depicted as the artist used mechanical forms with sexual associations to evoke the industrialised epoch.
7. The Stolen Mirror by Max Ernst
Christie’s sale entitled The Art of the Surreal in London on February 2 was led by The Stolen Mirror by Max Ernst (1891-1976). Consigned from a private European collection, it was estimated at £7m-10m and sold for £7.64m with premium.
The oil on canvas was a typically dreamlike landscape and was dated and inscribed 'max ernst 1941 product of France' on the reverse.
8. Egon Schiele’s Selbstbildnis mit gespreizten Fingern
Christie’s evening sales of Impressionist and Modern Art and The Art of the Surreal, in London on February 2, realised a combined total of £95,9m with premium, selling 75% by lot. The top lot in the Imps & Mods auction was Egon Schiele’s (1890-1918) Selbstbildnis mit gespreizten Fingern which was estimated at £6m-8m and sold at £7.25m with premium.
The 2ft 5in x 11.5in (74 x 30cm) oil and metallic paint on canvas was a self-portrait dating from when Schiele reached creative maturity in 1909. It came to auction from a private European vendor.
9. Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel by Marc Chagall
Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) that sold for £7.03m with premium at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art auction on February 2.
Painted in 1928, the 2ft11in x 3ft 10in (89cm x 1.17m) signed oil on canvas was billed as one of the artist’s most romantic paintings and it drew competition on the night from a number of bidders to take it over the £4.8m-6.8m estimate.
10. Erna am Meer, Fehmarn by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Erna am Meer, Fehmarn by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) that sold for £4.79m with premium at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on February 2. Estimated at £1.5m-2.5m, it came to auction from a private European vendor but had formerly been owned by Morton D. May, the St Louis philanthropist and art collector whose outstanding collection of German expressionist paintings now forms the core of the St Louis Museum of Art.
The 2ft 7in x 2ft 3in (79 x 69cm) oil on canvas belongs to the celebrated series of paintings that Kirchner made on the Baltic island of Fehmarn in the summer of 1913.
