Marilyn, an Andy Warhol colour silkscreen from 1967 – €190,000 (£163,800) at Van Ham.
Six of them got away for a combined £487,000 – a total showing how lucrative the market remains for the leading figure in the pop art market.
The top seller at the auction was an example of one of his many editions depicting Marilyn Monroe. Entered from a private collection in southern Germany, it belonged to a 10-part portfolio from 1967 published by Factory Additions in New York.
Each of the 10 colour silkscreens on thin card was printed in an edition of 250 signed and numbered sheets.
Measuring 3ft (91cm) square, this copy was described in the Van Ham catalogue as ‘one of the most attractive colour variations from the portfolio’.
Estimated at €150,000-200,000 at the sale on November 30, it sold at €190,000 (£163,800).
Another print of one the artist’s most repeated subjects, an image Chinese leader Mao Zedong, came to auction from a private collection in North Rhine-Westphalia. From a 1972 edition, it was again part of a portfolio of 10 works all printed in 250 copies each.
This sheet, however, was a printer’s proof published outside the main edition. Estimated at €60,000-80,000, it was knocked down on low estimate.
Beethoven, an Andy Warhol colour silkscreen from 1987 – €100,000 (£86,205) at Van Ham.
From the same source came a copy of Beethoven, a 3ft 4in (1.02m) colour silkscreen published by Hermann Wünsche in 1987. Created shortly before Warhol’s death, the publisher had commissioned it to mark the 2000th anniversary of his native city Bonn, the capital of West Germany at the time.
For the series, Warhol drew on the famous portrait of the great composer by Joseph Karl Stieler (1781-1858). Here, the print came from a four-part portfolio but was one of 72 trial proofs.
It tipped over a €70,000-90,000 estimate, selling at €100,000 (£86,205).
£1 = €1.16
