Sale proceeds will go to selected charities
Smashing previous record of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s collection which sold for $484m in 2009, Christie’s has set a new art market record for a private collection.
On Tuesday night, it sold $646m worth of Impressionist and Modern masters on the first night of a three-day sale of works owned by Peggy and billionaire David Rockefeller. Bidders registered from 34 countries across five continents.
Highlight of the evening was Pablo Picasso’s “Fillette à la corbeille fleurie” (1905), a nude which an American collector Leo Stein bought for just $30, was sold for a record price of $115,000,000.
Another new record was set Claude Monet’s “Nymphéas en fleur (1914-1917)”, which was part of the series of water lilies the artist painted in the middle of the first world war in his garden in Giverny. It was estimated to sell for $50m and sold for $84.7m.
Talking about the evening, Chairman of Christie’s Americas Marc Porter said: “The Rockefeller legacy has resonated strongly and we are thrilled with the results achieved for the first evening in this series of sales, already over our expectations.”
According to media reports, the proceeds from the sale will go to selected philanthropies supported by the couple.
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