A historic sale took place at Christie's in New York.
On Wednesday night, the auction of the art collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died in 2018, passed the historic $1 billion mark.
In a sign that the art market continues to grow despite the economic uncertainties linked to the war in Ukraine and inflation, five paintings entered the closed club of works sold for more than 100 million dollars at auction during this memorable evening at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.
The most expensive,
Les Poseuses, Ensemble (small version)
(1888) by Georges Seurat, a painting considered a masterpiece of pointillism, another version of which hangs at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, reached 149.24 million, including costs, announced Christie's.
The company did not provide information on the identity of the buyers, a custom for auction houses.
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection 'Les poseuses, ensemble (Petite version)' by Georges Seurat set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $149.24 million, almost 5x the artist's previous record pic.twitter.com/pnAWYnfoAh
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) November 10, 2022
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A multi-talented billionaire
Christie's, controlled by François Pinault's Artémis holding company, had announced that the entire amount of sales would be donated to charity.
Despite his falling out with Bill Gates, his partner in the birth of Microsoft in 1975, the American billionaire Paul Allen, had signed his "Giving Pledge" in 2009, pledging to donate the majority of his fortune.
While only 60 of 150 lots were sold on Wednesday - the rest will be on Thursday - the value of the collection has already surpassed the previous record for the Macklowe collection, named after a wealthy New York couple, which reached 922 million dollars at competitor Sotheby's in the spring.
According to one calculation, the sale totaled approximately $1.5 billion.
After “Les Poseuses” by Georges Seurat, a “Montagne Sainte-Victoire” (1888-1890) by Paul Cézanne, heralding Cubism, reached 137.79 million.
Records were also broken for Vincent Van Gogh, whose "Orchard with Cypresses" sold for $117.1 million, or for Paul Gauguin, whose painting from the Tahitian period, "Maternity II" (1899), is gone to $105.73 million.
A work by Gustav Klimt, “Birch Forest”, reached 104.5 million dollars, another record.
With these sales, and that of a portrait of Marilyn Monroe "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" by Andy Warhol, which left in May for 195 million dollars, the year 2022 should remain as one of the most expensive in history. of the art market.
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