The bidding war lasted less than four minutes on Monday evening at Christie's in New York, and then the hammer fell: Andy Warhol's silkscreen painting "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" went to the art dealer Larry Gagosian for $170 million, including fees of $195 million.

Whether he struck for himself or a customer remained his secret.

This makes Warhol's 1964 portrait of Marilyn Monroe the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction of the 20th century - and the second most expensive ever after the "Salvator Mundi" attributed to Leonardo, which sold for $450.3 million with buyer's premium in 2017.

Pablo Picasso's brothel scene "Les Femmes d'Algers", brokered in 2015 for $179.4 million gross, slipped down one rank.

Ursula Scheer

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Is this the latest proof that the art market in the top segment has gone berserk, despite all the global crises – or because of them?

Yes and no.

In fact, the sale of the non-guaranteed "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" dethroned Jean-Michel Basquiat as America's most expensive artist ($110.5 million including premium for a canvas with a skull, 2018) and smashed Warhol's previous auction record.

His “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)” cost $105.4 million in 2013.

The best mark was getting on in years, and the sales volume for works by the pop art artist had even been declining since 2015.

A shot with consequences

However, the series of five hundred centimeters square "Marilyns" in different color combinations, of which the picture with a "sage blue" background has now become the top trophy, arouses particular desire: Four of the pictures, when they were in Warhol's Factory at a Leaning against the wall, performance artist Dorothy Podber “shot” with a pistol.

That made them unique - although the light blue "Marilyn" remained undamaged, just like the one before Orange.

The American hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin is said to have paid more than two hundred million dollars for the latter in a private purchase in 1998.

That puts the estimate into perspective with which the pale blue counterpart started: "around 200 million dollars".

It came from the private collection of the deceased Swiss art dealer siblings Thomas and Doris Ammann, which was filled with top works.

It came to them in 1986 from the Gagosian gallery – and things have come full circle.

Now the collection went under the hammer for the benefit of needy children.

Why, then, did "Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" fetch less than expected, while the 36-lot offering totaling $273 million ($317.8 million including premium) was the second-biggest benefit auction since the Rockefeller collection, but just so came within range of overall expectation?

At the beginning of the New York auction week, where Christie's plans to turn over $1.5 billion and Sotheby's $1.18 billion, the auction shows that the auction market, which is not quite post-pandemic, is extraordinarily strong in times of falling stocks, rising commodity prices and the Ukraine war, but after does not seem to have left the earthly orbits completely in the record year 2021.

The ruble stopped rolling at the auction, Asians held back.

In the end, Warhol's "Marilyn" stands for a "realistic" price that even disappointed some, insanely high as it is.

Works by women artists are insanely low in comparison.

Georgia O'Keeffe holds their auction record with a flower picture.

It cost a whopping $44.4 million at Sotheby's in 2014.

A bargain.