“We’ve done a huge amount of work in Asia,” said Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s global president, after the sale. “We’ve genuinely cultivated the younger generation of collectors there. It’s the Asians who’ve underpinned the market this week.”
Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian was the buyer of the Modigliani nude, the season’s top lot. It will be shown at his private museum in Shanghai.
Asian buyers also bought art by Modigliani, Giacometti and Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s last week. On Wednesday, Hong Kong billionaireJoseph Lau paid 48.6 million Swiss francs ($48.5 million) at Sotheby’s in Geneva for a 12.03-carat blue diamond, the most ever spent on a gem at auction. A day earlier, he paid 28.7 million francs for a 16.08-carat pink diamond at Christie’s in Geneva
Fierce Bidding
Few fireworks erupted in an otherwise measured Christie’s auction. A charcoal drawing of a woman by Henri Matisse, which opened the sale, provided one such fiery moment, with at least eight bidders chasing the work from the collection of Arthur and Anita Kahn. The final price was $3.8 million, almost four times the high estimate.
Another high point was a Surrealist painting by Kay Sage, which soared to $1.2 million, 10 times the high estimate and was purchased by an American museum, according to Christie’s.
Of the 59 lots offered, 83 percent sold. The 10 unsold artworks included sculptures by Picasso and Edgar Degas, and paintings by Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley and Georges Braque.
Christie’s day auction of Impressionist and modern art will take place on Friday. The auctioneer’s running tally in the category is $487.8 million. Sotheby’s, which completed its series of semiannual auctions, tallied $629.1 million in the category.