Monet and Rodin Set Price Records at Christie’s
Fears that the Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art would usher in a market meltdown were assuaged early Tuesday evening when everything from a Monet landscape to a monumental sculpture by Rodin brought record prices.
Although more modern images seem to generate the most auction excitement these days, the Monet painting was the evening’s biggest ticket. The 1873 canvas “The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil,” is considered a prime example of high Impressionism, and Christie’s experts had predicted it would fetch $35 million.
So when a buyer bidding by telephone beat out two other contenders to pay a record $41.4 million, it proved that the market for top Impressionist works is alive and well. The previous auction record for a Monet was the $36.5 million paid last June at Sotheby’s in London for a “Waterlilies” from 1904.
“Railroad Bridge” proved a wise long-term investment for the Nahmad family, dealers with galleries in New York and London who were the sellers. They bought the painting in 1988 at Christie’s in London for $12.6 million, which was at the time the second-highest price ever paid at auction for a Monet. (A few months earlier, his 1876 “In the Prairie” had sold for $22.5 million at Sotheby’s.)
Monumental sculptures also brought surprising prices. “Eve, the Large Version,” a five-foot-tall Rodin bronze of a woman with folded arms hiding her face in shame, sold for $18.9 million, a record price for the artist. Conceived in 1881 and cast in 1887, it had been expected to bring $9 million to $12 million.
Laurence Graff, the London-based jeweler, sat in the front row and was seen buying two sculptures by Henry Moore: “Family Group,” a nearly 18-inch-high bronze of a family of four for $4 million, just above its $3.5 million estimate, and “Working Model for Reclining Figure: Angles” (1975-77), for which he paid $3.2 million, in line with its high estimate.
“Portrait with a Blue Coat,” a 1935 Matisse, was also a winner. A portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya, his studio assistant and frequent model, in a fur stole and pearls, sold to a telephone bidder for $22.4 million, well above its $17 million estimate.
Miró’s “Caress of the Stars” (1938), which shows the artist’s familiar grotesque abstract figures against a galaxy of menacing tentacular stars, brought $17 million. The painting, which experts link to the artist’s preoccupation with the civil strife in Spain, sold for $11.7 million at Christie’s in 2004. Christie’s had estimated it would sell for $12 million to $16 million on Tuesday night.“Anita en Almée” (1908), a sexually charged painting by Kees Van Dongen of a topless woman with veils whose title invokes the Near Eastern “almah,” or belly dancer, failed to sell. It had been expected to go for $12 million to $16 million.
A Venice scene painted by Monet in 1908 also had no takers. It had been estimated to fetch $8 million to $12 million.
As the crowds milled outside of Christie’s after the sale, dealers and collectors were visibly relieved that the money is still out there for the right art.