It was a record auction with an announcement: Franz Marc's 1913 painting "The Foxes", which had only recently been restituted from the Düsseldorf Museum Kunstpalast to the heirs of the Jewish collector couple Grawi, was offered with a third-party guarantee at Christie's in London.

A telephone bidder from the British capital finally bought it for 42.7 million pounds (plus premium) and lifted it above the estimate of around 35 million pounds.

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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This not only makes "The Foxes" the front-runner in Christie's three-part evening auction of modern and contemporary art, spanning London and Shanghai on Tuesday, but also the most expensive Franz Marc ever sold.

The previous auction record for a work by the Expressionist, who died off Verdun in 1916, was held by the 1910 painting Grazing Horses III, which changed hands at Sotheby's in London in 2008 for £12.34 million.

Art dealing in the times of the Ukraine war: He was unshaken in the global top segment when Christie's expanded its London evening auction for the first time with a segment in the auction house's new Shanghai branch.

According to the calculation, customers from the Asia-Pacific region should be more closely involved in large western auctions.

It is unlikely that Russian bidders were involved.

Their share of the market has steadily decreased since the 2008 financial crisis, while buyers from the Middle East and Far East have continued to gain in importance.

A total of 110 lots have now grossed £249 million at Christie's auctions.

The result is within the estimate of 208.5 to 298.8 million excluding premium.

A large-scale triptych by Francis Bacon went for £39.4 million to its only bidder, who was on the phone.

It was a success but not a triumph for the imperative work, which only achieved its underestimate.

Another high-priced work to be auctioned in London was Lucian Freud's Girl with Closed Eyes, a portrait of the painter's muse Janey Longman, which has been in a private British collection since 1987.

The picture rose to £13million, within its estimate.

Five Picassos were also part of the intercontinental offer.

The etching of two dining figures "Le Repas frugal" from 1904 surprisingly achieved the price of 6 million pounds with buyer's premium.

The result was four times the estimate of 1.5 million.