Since “The Scream” by Edvard Munch had been awarded to dolalrs 119,920,000 at Sotheby’s in New York on 2 May 2012, a Picasso no longer occupied the place of most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Three years and two records later, it is no longer the case. “Women of Algiers” (final version), an oil painting by Pablo Picasso in 1955, was awarded Monday, May 11 at Christie’s in New York to $ 179.4 million (161 million euros), an absolute record for auction.
At the last sale, the painting, done by the Spanish artist in homage to Henri Matisse died in November 1954, was sold at Christie’s in 1997 for $ 32 million .
The record was held by a painting by Francis Bacon
“This is a masterpiece of up to ‘Guernica’ o u ‘Demoiselles d’Avignon’ “, had said before the sale the vice president of Christie’s, Loïc Gouzer. However, the auction house had counted “only” on a sale at $ 140 million but several telephone bidders drove up the price up to 160 million. The final price by including the commission of a little over 12% affected by the auction house, reached 179.365 million dollars.
The previous record had been hit by a painting of Francis Bacon, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” , awarded $ 142.4 million in November 2013, also at Christie’s. This year, the art market has signed a record activity, jumping 13% in value to over 12 billion euros
New record for the most expensive sculpture
During the same evening, another record was broken and it is this time the most expensive sculpture, with “Man finger “ Alberto Giacometti (1947), which sold $ 141.3 million (€ 126.6 million).
This slender bronze 1m77, estimated $ 130 million. It was awarded in three minutes, beating the previous record set by “Walking Man I” , also Giacometti, who had been sold 65 million pounds (103.93 million dollars) in 2010 at Sotheby’s in London.
(With AFP and Reuters)
No comments:
Post a Comment