Claude Monet’s grain stack painting fetched a record $81.4 million for the artist on Wednesday after a 14-minute bidding war.
The 1891 canvas, “Meule,” lifted Christie’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale to $246.3 million, a 69 percent jump from the similar auction a year ago. Christie’s also held a special auction last year of 20th century art, “The Artist’s Muse,” which hauled in almost half a billion dollars.
The strong night comes after dampened expectations for this week of bellwether sales in New York. Many sellers chose to sit out the auctions because of market contraction and volatility surrounding the U.S. presidential election. Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips are targeting at least $1 billion in sales during this week’s auctions in New York, down 49 percent from a year ago.
Christie’s set auction records for two major artists on Wednesday -- Monet and Wassily Kandinsky whose 1935 abstract composition “Rigide et courbe" fetched $23.3 million, within the estimated range.
“We needed to have this auction cycle to boost market confidence,” said Christophe van de Weghe, an art dealer in New York. “We can clearly see tonight that very high-quality art brings very high prices.”
Monet Record
Top lot: The Monet, which was estimated to sell at $45 million, last appeared at auction in 1999, when it sold for $12 million. The artist’s previous auction record of $80.4 million had remained unbroken since 2008.
Monet painted about 25 of the grain stack canvases in the early 1890s, of which 19 are in public museum collections, according to Christie’s. Works from this series are much rarer than the Impressionist master’s famous water-lily pond canvases that have been popular among buyers globally in the past decade.
Asian bidding: Collectors from Asia accounted for 11 percent of bidders and buyers at Christie’s on Wednesday. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa snapped up a jewel-like 1938 portrait by Pablo Picasso of his lover Dora Maar for $22.6 million, Christie’s said after the auction. It was one of 11 Picasso artworks in the sale, 10 of which found buyers.
Richter Results