Art Market

Christie’s London evening sales reach $118 million.

Arun Kakar
Oct 16, 2023 1:26PM, via Christie's

© Christie’s Images Limited 2023. Courtesy of Christie's.

A pair of evening sales last Friday at Christie’s in London reached a combined total of £96.5 million ($118 million). The first sale, “Josefowitz: A Lifetime of Discovery and Scholarship,” reached £51.8 million ($63.3 million), while “The 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale” realized a total of £44.7 million ($54.5 million). The combined sell-through value across the evening was 85% per lot and 89% by value.

The top five sales from “The 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale” were as follows:

  • Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Future Sciences Versus the Man (1982) sold for £10.4 million ($12.7 million).
  • Peter Doig’s House of Pictures (2000-2002) sold for £6.1 million ($7.4 million).
  • Marlene Dumas’s After the Kiss (1996) Sold for £3.1 million ($3.8 million).
  • Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (1994) sold for £2.1 million ($2.6 million).
  • George Condo’s In the Brothel (2007) sold for £1.86 million ($2.3 million).

The top five sales from “Josefowitz: A Lifetime of Discovery and Scholarship” were as follows:

  • Kees van Dongen’s La Quiétude (1918) sold for £10.8 million ($13.1 million).
  • Diego Giacometti’s La console 'Hommage à Böcklin' (1980) sold for £5.1 million ($6.2 million).
  • An Assyrian gypsum relief of a winged Genius from 883–859 B.C.E. sold for £3.9 million ($4.7 million).
  • Félix Valloton’s Cinq heures (1989) sold for £3.7 million ($4.5 million), a new record for the artist at auction.
  • A wood sculpture of a standing Jizo Bosatsu (Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha) from 13th-Century Japan sold for £3.7 million ($4.5 million).

Artists’ records set across both auctions included:

  • Sahara Longe, for Party Scene (2021), which sold for £176,400 ($214,709).
  • Pam Evelyn, for Worked on Earth (2020), which sold for £113,400 ($138,030).
  • Akseli Gallen-Kallela, for Autumn - Five Crosses: A preliminary work for the fresco in the Jusélius Mausoleum, which sold for £1 million ($12.17 million).
  • Alvaro Barrington, for Welcome (2023), which sold for £63,000 ($76,681).
  • Winston Branch, for The Magic is in You (1982), which sold for £239,400 ($291,390).
  • Salvo, for Il giorno fu pieno di lampi la sera verranno le stelle (The day was full of lightning in the evening stars will come out) (1991), which sold for £693,000 ($867,258).
Arun Kakar
Arun Kakar is Artsy’s Art Market Editor.