SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK AUCTIONS OF IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART ACHIEVE $288.3 MILLION Day Sale Totals a Robust $58.3 Million WORKS FROM THE LEWYT COLLECTION BRING $104.2 MILLION TO DATE
A group of nearly 100 illustrated artists’ letters, gorgeous small-scale pictures, works on paper and more from the Collection of Alex & Elisabeth Lewyt buoyed Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale to an impressive $58,296,000 – one of the highest sums that Sotheby’s has ever achieved for this sale. When combined with yesterday’s Evening auction, Sotheby’s sales of Impressionist & Modern art in New York achieved $288.3 million this spring season, with a healthy 80.7% of the 431 lots on offer finding buyers.
Works from the Lewyt Collection well-exceeded expectations in the Day sale, fetching $15.6 million above an overall high estimate of $8.8 million. These results lift the Collection to $104.2 million at Sotheby’s thus far, with sales to come including the Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby’s Paris this June, which will offer two important canvases by Nicolas de Staël.
Works sold in today’s auction from the Lewyt Collection featured: a wonderful selection of artist letters that performed exceptionally, led by Édouard Manet’s Trois prunes from 1880 that achieved $1,265,000, more than five times its high estimate of $250,000; Paul Cézanne’swatercolor on paper Carafe et bol that sold for $989,000 – altogether, five works by Cézanne from the Lewyt Collection have sold at Sotheby’s in the last two days for a combined $45.4 million; and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s jewel-like portrait Petite Baigneuse, measuring just 3 ½ by 2 5/8 inches, which fetched $785,0000 and tripled its high estimate of $250,000.
The top lot of the auction was Renoir’s Route à Berneval, which achieved $1,905,000 (est. $1/1.5 million). By the 1870s, Renoir often stayed at the Château de Wargemont in Berneval with his host Paul Bérard, an embassy secretary who became an important patron for the artist. With rich blues and lush green tones, Renoir here imparts his experience of the quiet coastal town in Normandy.
Property from the collection of David C. Copley inspired competition among bidders, driving Camille Pissarro’s La Maison Rondest et son jardin à l'Hermitage, Pontoise to double its high estimate of $900,000 and sell for $1,805,000. Originally in the collection of fellow Impressionist Mary Cassatt, the work depicts a landscape near the town of Pontoise, where Pissarro lived from 1866 until 1883. In total, 20 lots from the Copley Collection brought $7 million today – well above their $4.8 million high expectation. Two oils from the Collection by Françoise Gilot, painted in 1952 during her affair with Pablo Picasso, each sold for a new record price of $509,000: Les peintres and Autoportait au ciel bleu, both shattering their high estimates of $40,000 and $35,000, respectively.
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Sotheby’s has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art since 1744. Sotheby’s became the first international auction house when it expanded from London to New York (1955), the first to conduct sales in Hong Kong (1973) and France (2001), and the firstinternational fine art auction house in China (2012). Today, Sotheby’s presents auctions in eight different salesrooms, including New York, London, Hong Kong and Paris, and Sotheby’sBidNow program allows visitors to view all auctions live online and place bids in real-time from anywhere in the world. Sotheby’s offers collectors the resources of Sotheby’s Financial Services, the world’s only full-service art financing company, as well as private saleopportunities in more than 70 categories, including S|2, the gallery arm of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art department, as well as Sotheby’s Diamonds and Sotheby’s Wine.Sotheby’s has a global network of 90 offices in 40 countries and is the oldest company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (BID).
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium and prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.
