It has change into clearer in these previous few years that the actual battle between public sale homes isn’t about outcomes however within the race for consignments. Yesterday, Sotheby’s landed a knockout: the $400 million Leonard A. Lauder Assortment, set to hit the podium throughout November’s New York marquee night gross sales. Lauder—hailed as one in all America’s nice artwork collectors and benefactors, and a longtime patron of the Whitney—died this previous June. Each Christie’s and Sotheby’s had been reportedly in negotiations to safe what’s more likely to be one of the vital troves coming to public sale this yr.
Main the standalone 24-lot night sale on November 18 is a Klimt masterpiece estimated in extra of $150 million, anticipated to surpass the artist’s earlier file of $108.8 million (£85.3 million), additionally set at Sotheby’s when Dame mit Fächer (Girl with Fan) offered in London in June 2023. What higher approach to launch their new location on the Breuer Constructing, contemporary off its renovation?
This specific Klimt is without doubt one of the best full-length portraits by the Austrian grasp; it depicts the younger Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of Klimt’s best patrons. The portray has by no means earlier than appeared on the open market and epitomizes the aesthetic of Vienna’s Golden Age, by which youth, magnificence, coloration and decorative splendor are fused collectively in a portrait of pure magnificence, which Helena Newman, Sotheby’s chairman of Impressionist & Trendy Artwork Worldwide, identified within the assertion accompanying the announcement.
Executed between 1914 and 1916, Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer additionally displays the affect of golden age exoticism—the fascination with the East by Japonaiserie and Chinoiserie, which right here is revealed not solely within the flatness of the composition, structured round sinuous traces of Lederer wearing Poiret-inspired Viennese vogue, but in addition within the Asia-inspired characters that float mysteriously round her, echoing Klimt’s ardour for Chinese language and Japanese artifacts and textiles.
The work was confiscated by the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz in 1939 and restituted to the Lederer heirs after the warfare in 1946. Later acquired from the household by Serge Sabarsky, an early champion of German and Austrian artwork in America, the portrait entered Lauder’s assortment within the mid-Eighties.
Notably, this isn’t the one Klimt coming to public sale at Sotheby’s as a part of the Lauder assortment. The sale additionally contains an beautiful instance of his floral-period landscapes, Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) (1908), a piece not far in spirit from the model held by MoMA and certain exhibited within the Austrian pavilion on the first Worldwide Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 1910. With an estimate in extra of $80 million, the portray additionally makes its public sale debut following a controversial restitution declare that led the Musée d’Orsay to return it to the heirs of Nora Stiasny, née Zuckerkandl. It later handed by Sabarsky’s fingers earlier than getting into Lauder’s assortment in 1985.
Final however not least, the sale will characteristic Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee), an outline of an undisturbed idyll from 1916 that, with its extra expressionist brushstrokes, exhibits the affect of Van Gogh. Believed to be the final surviving panorama Klimt ever painted, it carries an estimate in extra of $70 million.
Further highlights from the sale embody an emotionally charged and psychologically intense evocation of a Nordic midsummer night time by Edvard Munch, Sankthansnatt Johannisnacht (Midsummer Night time) (1901–03). Characterised by a extra luminous and saturated palette than his regular dusky tones, it has an estimated worth in extra of $20 million. Additionally within the sale is without doubt one of the most important teams of bronzes by Matisse to come back to public sale in recent times, with six sculptures anticipated to fetch round $30 million in complete. Final however not least is an immaculate graphite grid by Agnes Martin, The Backyard, which demonstrates her mastery of geometry and radical strategy to portray. Beforehand held within the personal assortment of visionary curator and collector Samuel Wagstaff—a truth that will have spared it from destruction, in contrast to a lot of Martin’s early works—the piece entered the Lauder assortment in 1979, the place it has remained for practically half a century.
Information of the Lauder public sale got here simply days after the Guardian reported that Sotheby’s had greater than doubled its losses in comparison with the earlier yr, reaching $248 million in a sluggish artwork market. As the newest Artwork Basel and UBS International Artwork Market Report revealed, public sale homes had been hit hardest by the downturn, with a 20 p.c drop in complete gross sales—bringing them to their lowest degree since 2020. This was largely because of a pointy decline within the high-end section and the rising issue in securing prime consignments, as house owners have been reluctant to half with trophy works throughout a time of geopolitical and financial uncertainty.
The query now could be whether or not these marquee estates can inject vitality and restore confidence after a season of sluggishness, significantly on the public sale aspect. The dynamic ground exercise and early gross sales on the 2025 Armory Present urged that American collectors had been prepared to begin shopping for once more, although maybe at lower cost factors.
Sotheby’s Pritzker assortment sale and Christie’s Weis and Wynn consignments
Right this moment (Sept. 16), Sotheby’s introduced that the assortment of Chicago patrons Cindy and Jay Pritzker may even be supplied this November, with masterpieces featured of their Trendy Night Public sale and extra works slated for gross sales throughout Books and Manuscripts, Sculpture and Works of Artwork, Chinese language Works of Artwork and Design.
If the identify sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of the couple established the Pritzker Structure Prize in 1979—now considered the Nobel of structure. Over the a long time, the prize has spotlighted the abilities of Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Richard Rogers, Sir Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, Hans Hollein, Diébédo Francis Kéré, Tadao Ando and Shigeru Ban.
Main the sale of the Pritzker assortment is Van Gogh’s nonetheless life Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a portrait of books by an artist who learn voraciously, estimated to promote for $40 million. Different Modernist highlights embody a uncommon triptych by Henri Matisse, Léda et le cygne (1944-46), with an estimate of $7-10 million, and Paul Gauguin’s evocative rural panorama La Maison de Pen du, gardeuse de vache (1889), painted throughout his Nabis interval in Pont-Aven and estimated to promote for $6-8 million.
Further works revealed with the announcement embody Max Beckmann’s epic Der Wels (Catfish), estimated at $5-7 million; Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Hallesches Tor, Berlin (Halle Gate, Berlin) (1913), estimated at $3-5 million; a Camille Pissarro Impressionist canvas from his decade-long second sojourn in Pontoise ($1.2-1.8 million); and a late large-scale outside sculpture by Joan Miró ($4-6 million). For the next gross sales in different classes, Sotheby’s may even supply the Pritzkers’ extraordinary portolan chart by Petrus Roselli from 1447 (£700,000-1 million) and a uncommon Tang Dynasty dappled dark-brown glazed pottery horse ($400,000-800,000).
In the meantime, Christie’s introduced final week it had secured the assortment of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis, which can be heading to the podium for the November marquee gross sales with an estimate in extra of $180 million. Main the devoted single-owner sale of the primary 18 heaps is Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe), with a $50 million estimate, to be adopted by works happening the block within the twentieth Century Night Sale (dates to be confirmed).
The total consignment contains 80 artworks, all drawn from the Philadelphia house and New York house of the distinguished accumulating couple, who made their fortune by the family-operated meals firm Weis Markets. In accordance with Christie’s, in an period earlier than the web or social media, Weis meticulously researched the artwork world—studying public sale catalogs, consulting a choose circle of trusted advisors and visiting galleries in New York on weekends and within the U.Okay. and France whereas on trip—to find out what he and his spouse needed to gather and dwell with.
Among the many masterpieces lengthy held within the assortment and now returning to the market is Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Pink and Blue (1939-41), estimated at $20-30 million and painted at a pivotal second simply earlier than the warfare and his transfer to the New York metropolitan space, the place the Boogie Woogie rhythm would quickly animate his austerely ascetic abstractions. Different highlights embody an early Fauvist-style portray by Braque and a market-favored Picasso portrait of his lifelong muse Marie-Thérèse, with an estimate within the area of $40 million.
Christie’s has additionally secured the assortment of on line casino magnate Steve Wynn’s ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, who died this previous April. Identified for her extraordinary style and for the gathering she constructed each independently and along with her former husband, Wynn’s property is estimated in extra of $75 million. 9 of the highest works will likely be supplied within the twentieth Century Night Sale, two within the twenty first Century Night Sale and the rest within the Submit-Struggle and Modern Artwork Day Sale.
The highlights span centuries and types however share the uncompromising high quality Wynn demanded from every artist—from J.M.W. Turner’s poetic masterpiece Ehrenbreitstein (estimate $12-18 million) and Seurat’s beautiful Parisian view to postwar icons together with Lucian Freud’s culminating self-portrait ($15-25 million) and Richard Diebenkorn’s radiant Ocean Park #40 ($15-25 million). On the extra female aspect of the gathering, standouts embody Joan Mitchell’s breathtaking, sunflower-inspired riot of coloration and gesture ($12–18 million) and a luminous gold piece by Olga de Amaral, coming to public sale following a steep rise in each institutional and market acclaim.
Extra in Auctions
