A portrait by surrealist master Rene Magritte fetched £5 million more than expected after a bidding war on the first night of a week of auctions anticipated to smash sales records.
The seven-way battle pushed the sale of Magritte’s The Pleasure Principle to a new £20.6 million auction record price for the artist. The painting was bought by an anonymous bidder.
The 1937 work is one of two portraits by the Belgian painter of patron Edward James, who supported him and other artists including Salvador Dali.
It was one of dozens of works, including paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, that changed hands for a total of £244 million at Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York.
Among them was the £18.9 million sale of Egon Schiele’s City In Twilight. The painting was bought in 1928 by a young Jewish widow in Vienna, who was forced to sell it when the Nazis invaded Austria. The sale was the result of a private deal between its current owners and her heirs. The highlights included £15.8 million paid out for Oskar Kokoschka’s portrait of Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac — five times the previous world auction record for the Austrian artist.
August Uribe, of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art department, said buyers from around the world responded with enthusiasm to the sale.
“The offering was characterised by originality as well as rarity, bringing together the best examples remaining in private hands by artists not typically seen at auction, alongside important works by the leading Modernists,” he said.
Even these prices are likely to be overshadowed later this week when David Hockney’s Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures) goes under the hammer at Christie’s. The painting of Hockney’s then lover Peter Schlesinger is estimated to fetch £62 million eclipsing the record price paid for a living artist — held by Jeff Koons whose sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for £44 million five years ago.
