Experts’ view on the market performance for the different artist segments over the next 12 months. Source: ArtTactic Art Market Expert Survey – January 2026
As Observer predicted would happen in our own end-of-year reporting, the market’s K-shaped divide will only become more acute: the most robust performance and dynamic deal flow are expected either at the top end—above the $1 million mark—or in the more accessible tiers below $50,000, while the middle market remains sluggish, especially for contemporary artists whose prices outpaced their résumés on the way into the five-figure range.
While 51 percent of experts surveyed expressed a positive outlook for the over-$1 million segment, confidence has rebounded even more sharply in the lower tiers, with 61 percent of respondents expecting a stronger year, compared with just 44 percent in 2025. Even on the heels of a stellar fall auction season, most experts—57 percent—agree that the secondary and auction markets will recover more quickly than the primary market, where 46 percent anticipate a flat year of post-bubble stability and only 35 percent foresee a comparable revival.
Across period categories, demand continues to concentrate around a limited number of names. For example, while the $236.4 million record-breaking Klimt sale contributed to the Modern segment’s standout performance—reaching $1.38 billion in 2025, up 19.4 percent year over year—the survey shows that auction sales were largely driven by just three top performers: Pablo Picasso (up 23.8 percent), Mark Rothko (up 122.2 percent) and Alexander Calder (up 108.9 percent). Similarly, on the Postwar and Contemporary side, the strongest gains were recorded by institutionally and market-consolidated artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha and Yoshitomo Nara, all of whom have been the subject of major museum exhibitions in recent years, reinforcing both buyer interest and market confidence.
Meanwhile, as the ultracontemporary segment continues to cool, all five of the top-selling Young Contemporary artists at auction—Matthew Wong, Nicolas Party, Avery Singer, Shara Hughes and Jadé Fadojutimi—have experienced year-over-year declines in both lot volume and total sales since 2023. Nicolas Party, once a market phenomenon, saw his total auction sales fall from a peak of $20,170,129 in 2023 to $2,497,160 in 2025. It remains unclear whether his current exhibition of 40 pocket-size paintings at Karma New York is intended to reignite market interest or to strategically introduce more accessible price points for new buyers after prices rose too quickly to sustain demand. Only 10 works were actually offered for sale, priced between $165,000 and $205,000, and all sold. The remaining three quarters of the exhibition consist of works from the artist’s archive—replicas of earlier pieces—intended, perhaps, to maintain visibility and keep his “myth” alive.
Installation view: Nicolas Party’s “Dead Fish” at Karma Chelsea. Courtesy Karma
More broadly, compared with the near-impossible waiting lists of the recent past, many of these artists are now considerably more accessible on the primary market, provided buyers are willing to meet revised price expectations. This shift may help explain the increase in unsold, withdrawn or canceled lots at recent auctions, unless estimates were already adjusted to create a sense of “deal.” A vivid 2022 abstraction by record-setting artist Jadé Fadojutimi, for example, failed to sell at Phillips last November, likely due to an overly ambitious $800,000-1,200,000 estimate. At Frieze Seoul in September, Taka Ishii presented an entire booth of her works priced between a more accessible $475,000 and $610,000, all available for sale on preview day.
Holding periods and annual rates of return
Looking at 81 repeat sales in the contemporary segment, the average annual rate of return (CAGR) fell to +2.3 percent (not inflation-adjusted), down from +5.1 percent the previous year. Short-term resales were particularly weak: nine works resold within five years posted an average annual loss of -9.2 percent. While it’s best to avoid framing art purely in financial terms, analysis confirms that, in today’s post-wet-paint-bubble market, historically validated works held for extended periods by the same owner deliver the strongest resale outcomes.
In the Impressionist category, for example, at least 67 percent of resold lots generated positive returns, up slightly from 65 percent in 2024, with an average annual return of +5.4 percent (not inflation-adjusted), compared with +4.3 percent the previous year. The average holding period increased to 27.3 years from 22.9 years in 2024, while the top 10 performing lots achieved an average CAGR of +18.2 percent over an average holding period of 14.6 years. The strongest individual result of 2025 was Tamara de Lempicka’s Femme Assise (1925), which sold for $522,357 (including buyer’s premium) at Christie’s Hong Kong in September 2025 after being acquired in 2015 for $31,283—an annualized return of +30.3 percent over a ten-year holding period.
Returns are even more polarized in the Postwar category when holding periods are factored in. According to ArtTactic, among 10 works resold within five years, the average annual loss was -7.6 percent. In contrast, works held for more than two decades delivered significantly stronger results, with average annual returns of +9.6 percent, rising to an average CAGR of +19.1 percent over a 15.3-year holding period.
In today’s post-wet-paint-bubble market, historically validated works held for extended periods by the same owner deliver the strongest resale outcomes. Source: ArtTactic Art Market Expert Survey – January 2026
In the contemporary segment, the holding period proves decisive, as time allows living artists to achieve more meaningful institutional validation—helping justify price levels and fueling both demand and confidence. Longer-held works, particularly those owned for more than 20 years, continued to perform more positively, delivering average annual returns of +8.9 percent. The strongest result was Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Womanology (2010), which sold for $573,181 (including buyer’s premium) at Phillips London in March 2025 after having sold for $90,600 at Christie’s London in 2014, yielding an annualized return of +19.4 percent over a 10.4-year holding period.
Political uncertainty and market expectations
One of the most revealing elements of the report is the extent to which art market experts’ sentiment aligns with rapidly shifting global geographic and economic conditions—particularly given how eventful the year’s opening has been. Despite growing political division and rising tension at both national and international levels, the Federal Reserve Bank’s Blue Chip survey of professional forecasters still projects about 1.9-2.0 percent real GDP growth for 2026, with inflation hovering around 2.9 percent and unemployment slightly higher than in 2025. At the 2026 World Economic Forum, U.S. officials suggested even stronger early-year momentum, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick forecasting first-quarter GDP growth above 5 percent. Reinforcing this relative resilience, all 33 U.S. banks with assets over $50 billion posted positive total returns last year.
Yet political uncertainty is clearly filtering into market expectations. While art expert sentiment toward the U.S. art market as the primary global center remains broadly positive heading into 2026, more optimistic growth expectations declined from 52 percent in 2025 to 48 percent in 2026. The current political and economic environment has also shaped experts’ perceptions of London and, more broadly, the U.K., which was once the undisputed second global center of the art market. Nearly half of respondents—49 percent—expect the British art market to remain at current levels, reflecting cautious confidence but also an acknowledgment that punitive tax policies targeting high-net-worth individuals—compounded by the longer-term disruptions of Brexit—have increasingly pushed wealth toward other global centers rather than attracting it.
Despite growing political division and rising tension at both national and international levels, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank’s Blue Chip survey of professional forecasters still projects about 1.9-2.0 percent real GDP growth for 2026. Source: ArtTactic Art Market Expert Survey – January 2026
Despite Europe entering 2026 in a phase of growing fragility—marked by heightened geopolitical tension, economic deceleration and a visible erosion of political leverage on the global stage—expert sentiment toward the continent has nonetheless improved. Positive expectations for Europe’s role in the art market rose from 17 percent to 28 percent, primarily driven by Paris’s renewed positioning as the most dynamic global art hub. Still, with the overall economic growth outlook for 2026 remaining sluggish at around 1.3 percent with slower wealth expansion than in other regions, most experts anticipate a stabilized, largely flat market characterized by incremental improvements rather than a full revival or renewed growth cycle.
Experts increasingly agree that power dynamics—and particularly the financial force shaping the future of the art market—are shifting toward new geographies. Unsurprisingly, with the arrival of Art Basel and Frieze and the success of Sotheby’s early Saudi sales, the Middle East—and the Gulf in particular—stands out as the most bullish region heading into 2026, with 76 percent of experts expecting positive market performance and minimal downside risk. This confidence is driven not only by the growing concentration of wealth but also by robust public investment in cultural infrastructure, an expanding institutional presence and sustained government-backed initiatives, with tourism authorities partnering directly not only with global museum brands but also, increasingly, with fairs and auction houses. Although the Middle East still accounts for a relatively small share of global turnover and activity remains concentrated in a limited number of centers, with regional economic growth projected at around 3.9 percent in 2026, its fairs and institutions are emerging as new magnets for international market activity at a moment when other regions face slower growth and mounting political headwinds.
South Asia and Southeast Asia are the other regions experts expect to sustain growth, driven by rising domestic wealth, increasing international recognition of regional artists and expanding institutional engagement that continue to bolster market confidence. This momentum is further reinforced by a younger, increasingly affluent population drawn to art, design and luxury collecting, with growing spending power. According to Christie’s year-end results, younger and new buyers from the region accounted for 37 percent of global luxury auction spending. Reflecting this shift, 53 percent of respondents now believe the art market in South Asia will continue its ascent, up from 32 percent last year. In comparison, positive expectations for Southeast Asia have climbed to 48 percent, up from 35 percent in 2025. India, in particular, remains the region’s anchor market, supported by strong domestic demand, projected economic growth of around 6.4 percent in 2026 and a rapidly expanding base of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
The primary gateway to the region remains Hong Kong, where all major auction houses have doubled down over the past year, investing heavily in expansive, experience-driven luxury headquarters. While auction results in 2025 were uneven and buyer behavior at Art Basel Hong Kong was notably more conservative, expert sentiment toward the city has improved sharply. Positive expectations for Hong Kong as the region’s leading art-market hub rose from 19 percent to 48 percent, while negative views fell dramatically from 52 percent in 2025 to just 14 percent heading into 2026.
China’s improving art-market outlook appears increasingly driven by ultra-high-net-worth individuals and internationally mobile capital, particularly as it continues to funnel through Hong Kong’s established financial and cultural infrastructure. Source: ArtTactic Art Market Expert Survey – January 2026
This rebound in confidence has unfolded alongside renewed optimism around mainland China. Despite escalating geopolitical tensions and U.S. tariffs, China posted approximately 5.0 percent economic growth in 2025, meeting the government’s official target and marking a modest rebound amid persistent domestic weakness and external pressures. While domestic consumption remained subdued—with retail sales growing only about 3.7 percent—and private museums continued to close throughout 2025, the improving art-market outlook appears increasingly driven by ultra-high-net-worth individuals and internationally mobile capital, particularly as it continues to funnel through Hong Kong’s established financial and cultural infrastructure.
Looking more broadly across Asia, experts also anticipate renewed energy in the South Korean market following a slow year and sluggish sales at Frieze Seoul, as the initial contemporary boom gave way to more conservative behavior—even among younger buyers. Thirty-four percent of experts expect a positive turn (up from 16 percent in 2025), supported by a broader wealth outlook pointing to moderate economic recovery, with growth projected at around 1.9-2.0 percent in 2026, driven by semiconductors, A.I.-related investment and a rebound in domestic consumption. This recovery is expected to be measured rather than explosive, as the market stabilizes after a speculative phase and becomes increasingly supported by institutional engagement and a more selective, quality-driven collector base.
Stability is also expected to continue to characterize Japan’s steadily evolving art market, in line with its broader economy and political landscape. Neutral sentiment among experts rose to 65 percent (up from 35 percent), reflecting a market historically anchored in mature institutions and seasoned players—largely resistant to speculative excess after having already absorbed its consequences during the 1980s boom.
Looking to the other side of the Americas, despite slowing regional growth and heightened geopolitical tension heading into 2026, confidence in the Latin American art market is strengthening, with positive expectations rising to 41 percent on the back of record-setting Modern sales and increased international visibility.
Experts’ outlook for Africa’s art market also remains stable rather than expansionary, with modestly improving sentiment and declining downside risk supported by selective institutional interest and growing international visibility—even as strong economic growth from a low base continues to be tempered by structural infrastructure constraints.
Dynamo Phyllis Kao led Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, which scored a $178.5 million result with strong participation from Asia. Julian Cassady Photography / Ali
After a challenging 2024—marked by a 25 percent contraction in the auction market—both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are closing 2025 with a clear rebound, according to newly released year-end results. Sotheby’s reported projected consolidated sales of $7 billion for 2025, a 17 percent increase over 2024. Christie’s, on a similar upward trajectory, expects to finish the year with $6.2 billion in global sales, up nearly 7 percent from last year’s $5.8 billion and broadly in line with its 2023 total. Following a slow start dampened by subdued May auctions, both houses regained momentum after the summer as the market strengthened, culminating in a multibillion-dollar fall season across London and New York.
While the blockbuster results of November’s marquee sales may not be sufficient on their own to signal a full recovery—concentrated as they are at the very top of the market—the broader picture reflected in these year-end numbers offers more substantial grounds for optimism. This year’s gains were driven not only by fine-art trophies but also by the continued rise of luxury collectibles and design—categories that are proving especially effective at attracting new buyers, often younger and from emerging markets, and ultimately broadening the base of the market overall.
Sotheby’s record year, led by trophies and luxury
Sotheby’s recorded a 26 percent year-over-year increase in auction sales to $5.7 billion, with a sharp acceleration in the second half of the year, which brought in 59 percent more than the same period in 2024. Private sales contributed an additional $1.2 billion, slightly below the prior year but still substantial.
Fine art sales generated $4.3 billion in revenue for the auction house in 2025, marking a 15 percent increase from the previous year’s downturn. The rebound was fueled by the exceptional quality of consignments secured for the fall season, including record-breaking masterpieces such as the $236.4 million Gustav Klimt—the most expensive work ever sold by Sotheby’s—and the $54.7 million Frida Kahlo, which set a new record for a work by a female artist.
November’s inaugural sales at the Breuer delivered the year’s biggest revenue surge, with six white-glove auctions totaling $1.173 billion in just a few days. Single-owner collections played a decisive role, including the $527.5 million Lauder collection in New York and the $137 million Karpidas collection earlier in London—high-profile consignments that helped lift market sentiment at a critical moment. “Our strong performance in the second half of the year demonstrates clear momentum in our markets, driven by more high-quality, major collections meeting Sotheby’s record levels of buyer demand,” confirmed Sotheby’s CEO Charles F. Stewart.
At the same time, Sotheby’s “Another World” strategy—transforming its major regional headquarters from Hong Kong to Paris and now the iconic Breuer building into cross-category boutique destinations—is beginning to deliver tangible results. The luxury sector is becoming increasingly central to the business, generating $2.7 billion in revenue, up 22 percent year-over-year and surpassing $2 billion for the fourth straight year.
Luxury is also emerging as a primary driver of market expansion, capable of attracting younger collectors while opening doors to new and rising markets. This was underscored by Sotheby’s successful $133 million Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi, whose cross-category luxury offerings drew collectors from 35 countries. Of those bidding, 28 percent were new to Sotheby’s and nearly one-third were under the age of 40.
The $10.1 million sale of Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin in Paris this summer focused attention on both the rising value and estate-planning complexities of luxury collectibles. Sotheby’s also reported a record year for watches, with a $42.8 million white-glove December auction in New York immediately following Collectors’ Week. That sale was led by the record-breaking complete four-piece set of the Patek Philippe Star Caliber 2000, which sold for $11.9 million.
Jewelry maintained strong momentum in Abu Dhabi and globally, with sales up approximately 18 percent. Meanwhile, RM Sotheby’s automotive division exceeded $1 billion in revenue for the first time, propelled by multiple records—including a 1994 McLaren F1 (chassis 014), the most expensive McLaren ever sold at public auction, and the highest-priced new Ferrari ever to hit the auction block during Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week.
Sports collectibles continue to attract bidders, but the standout among today’s collectibles may be dinosaurs, as demonstrated by the juvenile Ceratosaurus that soared to $30.5 million at Sotheby’s—more than seven times its low estimate.
The Design category also continues to gain traction and importance, with 65 percent growth over last year. It closed with a $50.2 million auction earlier this month—the highest total ever for the category—led by Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar, which reached a record-setting $31.4 million.
Taken together, these categories are central not only to sustaining the market but to reshaping Sotheby’s identity—from a traditional auction house catering primarily to connoisseurs into a broader luxury-experience destination capable of attracting bidders across multiple price tiers. This represents a key strategy in today’s market. By expanding participation and transaction volume, Sotheby’s can continue to drive revenue growth even as the ability to consistently secure multimillion-dollar fine-art masterpieces—this season included—remains neither guaranteed nor sufficient on its own to support headline results year after year.
Adrien Meyer sells the top lot of The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G Ross Weis, Mark Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) for $62,160,000. Christie’s
At Christie’s, the right pricing strategy met sustained bidding
Christie’s also reported what CEO Bonnie Brennan described as a “healthy and successful year,” with total auction revenue rising 8 percent to $4.7 billion. Combined with $1.5 billion in private sales—representing approximately 24 percent of the total—this brought the auction house’s global sales for 2025 to $6.2 billion, a 7 percent increase from the previous year.
One of the clearest indicators of how sustained bidding aligns with pricing strategy on the auction-house side is sell-through and sold-by-lot performance—an obsession of Christie’s global director Alex Rotter, as he recently revealed in an interview with ARTnews. Christie’s reported a sell-through rate of 88 percent and a hammer-to-low estimate index of 113 percent, both notably higher than in 2024.
The MEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) also expanded its share of Christie’s global total, rising from 32 percent in 2024 to 36 percent in 2025, with $1.435 billion in sales. Asia-Pacific, by contrast, declined for the second consecutive year, generating $686 million—5 percent less than the year before—and now accounts for 23 percent of Christie’s global business. Sales for Asian Art and World Art were also down 6 percent this year.
The 20th and 21st century category remains Christie’s core revenue driver, generating $2.859 billion in 2025, a 6 percent increase from the previous year. However, the Classics and Old Masters segments posted even stronger growth, generating $285 million and $182 million, with increases of 15 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Leading the Old Master category was Canaletto’s Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day, which sold in July in London for a record-setting £31.9 million ($43.9 million).
Meanwhile, the importance of the Luxury and Automotive markets continues to rise. Luxury sales reached $795 million, up 17 percent from 2024, while automotive sales through Gooding Christie’s totaled $234 million—an increase of 14 percent and the highest-grossing year in the company’s history.
Crucially, luxury is proving to be Christie’s most effective tool for attracting new and younger buyers. It accounted for 38 percent of new bidders in 2025, outperforming even the 20th and 21st century category, which contributed 33 percent. Asia-Pacific buyers in particular were highly engaged, with regional president Rahul Kadakia noting that they contributed 37 percent of global Luxury auction spend. This underscores the strong potential of Eastern markets—especially Southeast Asia—when engaged through categories aligned with their growing and increasingly affluent populations.
Christie’s also saw increased engagement from the Indian diaspora and broader participation across the Asia-Pacific region, which remains one of the strongest growth opportunities alongside rising spending power in the Middle East, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
For Christie’s—as for all the major auction houses—sustaining revenue growth hinges on expanding the market: both by tapping rising geographies and by attracting new generations of collectors capable of growing with the brand.
The demographic shifts are promising. In 2025, 46 percent of new bidders and buyers were millennials or younger, up roughly 5 percent from the previous year. The female client base also grew by about 10 percent. These trends align with wealth management forecasts and the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Survey of Global Collecting, which found that high-net-worth women outspent their male peers by an average of 46 percent on art and antiques in 2024. Women were also more likely than men to collect digital works, pieces by unknown artists, and emerging talent—pointing to both rising influence and evolving preferences that are reshaping the market.
All of this is unfolding in the context of the so-called “Great Wealth Transfer,” as economists forecast trillions of dollars passing from older generations to younger ones, boosting disposable income and discretionary spending among buyers already demonstrating a strong interest in collecting. Women are projected to inherit a substantial share of this wealth—some estimates suggest up to 70 percent—and by 2030, they are expected to control trillions in investable assets, a dramatic rise compared to previous decades.
Equally critical to attracting new buyers is the diversification of offerings across price points and categories, paired with technology designed to reach a generation that lives and buys online. In 2025, 63 percent of Christie’s new buyers made their first purchase online, where the average price (excluding wine) rose 14 percent year-on-year to $22,700.
Christie’s plans to continue investing in tech through 2026, including its collaboration with Dubbl on the Christie’s Select app for Apple Vision Pro, which offers immersive, spatial auction previews, and the ongoing Art+Tech Summits.
But attracting new buyers is only half the equation. Retention and long-term engagement—especially with younger collectors—are equally important. New buyers acquired in 2024 returned in 2025 and increased their total spend by 54 percent, with 22 percent purchasing in a different category from their original acquisition. These figures point to encouraging momentum not just for Christie’s but for the broader art and collectibles market, suggesting that even amid recalibration, a more diverse audience is emerging—one ready to support the market’s next chapter, even as tastes and trends continue, as always, to evolve.
When it comes to gifts for art lovers, wrapping original art is the ultimate power move. But here’s the catch: collectors pour their hearts—and usually their bank accounts—into curating deeply personal collections. If you know your giftee very, very well, a piece of art can be a very, very good gift. You could also treat the collector in your life to a gallery outing or surprise them with a session with an art advisor. But if adding to their collection feels too ambitious, there are plenty of artsy presents for everyone on your list, from the absolute obsessive to the casually cultured. Whether you’re working with a shoestring budget or aiming for extravagance, there’s no shortage of options that are thoughtful, stylish and primed to impress. Enjoy our guide to the gifts guaranteed to thrill any art enthusiast.
On November 20, Sotheby’s generated a combined total of $304.6 million between the Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection, Exquisite Corps and Modern Evening sales. Julian Cassady Photography / Ali
Of the $1.6 billion of art expected to change hands during this year’s November sales, $1.1 billion was secured by Sotheby’s when the evening sales concluded on the 20th. When tallied with the Day sales the following afternoon, the auction house’s fall marquee week sales had generated a total of $1.173 billion—the second-highest total ever after the $1.33 billion achieved in November 2021 at the height of the contemporary and ultracontemporary markets.
Following the success of the Leonard A. Lauder sale, which delivered a $527.5 million Evening total and a clean 100 percent sold rate for the $3.8 million Day sale offering (est. $3.2 million), Sotheby’s completed a full white-glove, three-sale marathon. It opened with The Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection Evening Auction, which totaled $109.5 million, followed by the $98.1 million Exquisite Corpus sale and a $97 million Modern Evening auction. Driving many of the lots was strong participation from Asia, which accounted for 30 percent of total bidding, a reminder that Asian collectors respond enthusiastically when true quality comes to market.
Most importantly, if 2021 belonged to the contemporary and ultracontemporary frenzy, these marquee sales showed a clear pivot. Buyers turned toward art-historical touchstones by the most established names in Modern art or toward figures long overlooked and now undergoing reassessment. Across the November sales, Sotheby’s sold $843 million of Modern works, the highest total ever for the category in a single season. Prestigious provenance and strong storytelling were key in this inaugural auction round at the Breuer building for Sotheby’s, with single-owner collections accounting for 72.5 percent of the week’s total ($828,244,220 of $1.173 billion). And in the contemporary segment, it was the artists with the strongest institutional foundations who rose to the top.
“After years of uneven seasons, this week’s results demonstrate that the often quoted cliche of the three D’s (death, debt and divorce) powering the art market has never been truer,” Mari-Claudia Jimenéz, partner and co-head of Withers Art & Advisory, confirmed. For the industry’s seasoned expert, the abundance of fresh-to-market, extraordinary-quality estate properties inspired buyers to return with gusto to chase the best-in-class works with impeccable histories.
Sotheby’s evening marathon on November 20 began with the collection of Chicago’s Cindy and Jay Pritzker, who are best known for founding the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979. The sale immediately set the tone of the night, generating $109.5 million across just 13 works against a pre-sale estimate of $73.5 million to $88.5 million.
Leading the auction was Vincent van Gogh’s Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a radiant still life from the artist’s Paris period in which a stack of yellow-bound books becomes a portrait of his voracious intellect and humanist curiosity. Boasting an extensive exhibition history, the canvas was pursued for at least seven minutes by five bidders and sold for a record-setting $62.7 million, well above its estimate of around $40 million and setting a new benchmark for any still life by the artist.
Deep bidding also accompanied the sale of Wassily Kandinsky’s musical watercolor “Ins violett” (Into Violet) from the height of his Bauhaus period, listed as No. 188 in his handlist. Sought by five bidders in a spirited exchange, it more than doubled its high estimate, fetching $2,368,000 (est. $700,000-$1,000,000).
Other Modern masterworks in the Pritzker collection prompted intense competition. Camille Pissarro’s Bords de l’Oise à Pontoise, dating to the beginning of the artist’s second sojourn in Pontoise in 1872, was pursued by four bidders and achieved $2.5 million against its $1.2-1.8 million estimate. Félix Vallotton’s poetic domestic scene, Femme couchée dormant (Le Sommeil), triggered an animated battle between six collectors on the phones and in the room, pushing it above its $1.8-2.5 million estimate to sell for $2.8 million. The canvas had been acquired by the Pritzkers from Wildenstein & Co., New York, in 1985 and remained with them ever since, as did most lots in the sale.
Lot 10, the Cubist Nature morte by Fernand Léger, also sparked back-and-forth bidding from five contenders, driving the work to $2,214,000, nearly double its $800,000-$1.2 million estimate. This was followed by a $9,200,000 result for Max Beckmann’s classics-inspired canvas, sought by five bidders, and Joan Miró’s uncanny sculptural reinterpretation La Mère Ubu, which achieved $5,052,000 after a battle between four bidders, landing near the midpoint of its $4-6 million estimate. The bronze had been acquired by the couple in 1980 from legendary dealer Pierre Matisse in New York.
Another highlight, Henri Matisse’s Léda et le cygne, sold for $10.4 million, meeting its high estimate with fees. One of the very few architectural pieces by the artist—the majority of which are in public spaces or museums—and the first of its kind to appear at auction, the unique work was commissioned in 1943 by Argentine diplomat Marcelo Fernández. Last exhibited publicly during the 1984-85 Matisse exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, it was acquired the following year by the Pritzkers from Feingarten Galleries in Los Angeles. But Paul Gauguin’s La Maison du Pen du, gardeuse de vache from his Nabis period failed to find enough bidders to meet its $6-8 million estimate, selling instead at its reserve for $4,930,000.
Frida Kahlo’s $54.7 million record
The evening continued with a section entirely dedicated to Surrealism, as the movement continues to gain momentum, further ignited by the major Surrealist show that has just opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and as its unsettling aesthetic resonates uncannily with the chaos, sentiments and desire to exorcise it that define our time. In only one night, Sotheby’s placed more than $123 million of Surrealist works, the highest total for Surrealist art ever sold in one evening at Sotheby’s.
Frida Kahlo’s El sueño (La cama) from 1940 achieved $54.7 million with fees, becoming the most expensive work by a female artist. Sotheby’s
The dedicated single-owner sale Exquisite Corpus offered works from one of the most distinguished private Surrealist collections, accumulated over four decades, yet kept rigorously unnamed in keeping with the movement’s aura of mystery. Nonetheless, given that many of the lots appeared in the Guggenheim’s 1999 exhibition “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes,” which celebrated the collections of Daniel Filipacchi and record producer Nesuhi Ertegun—who together assembled the most important grouping of Surrealist art in private hands—we can reasonably speculate that the consignor is most likely the Ertegun estate, especially once noticing that several works list in their provenance that they were acquired from the Parisian dealer Daniel Filipacchi, ruling him out as the consignor. Artnews reached the same conclusion, reporting that the 1940 Kahlo was consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, who built the collection with her late husband Nesuhi Ertegun. The session closed with a white-glove result of $98.1 million, with 67 percent of works selling above their high estimates.
The undisputed star of the collection was Frida Kahlo’s masterpiece of mystery and spirituality, El sueño (La cama), which ignited spirited international bidding before hammering at $47 million, or $54.7 million with fees, to Anna Di Stasi, Sotheby’s senior vice president and head of the Latin American art department. The result not only set a new record for the artist but also for any woman artist at auction, surpassing the previous $44.4 million benchmark set by Georgia O’Keeffe in 2014. The mystical canvas had been purchased by the consignor at Sotheby’s in 1980 for $51,000 and remained in the collection since then, marking a return of roughly 107,000 percent.
Depicting a skeleton floating above the artist as she lies in her bed—herself suspended midair as a fragile terrestrial vessel—Kahlo visualizes what art historian Whitney Chadwick describes as the “Mexican belief in the indivisible unity of life and death.” Considered a key work in Kahlo’s career, where she reached the height of her symbolic and psychological resonance, the canvas boasts a major exhibition history, having appeared in “Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti” (1982-83) at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the Haus am Waldsee in Hamburg, Kunstverein Hannover, Kulturhuset Stockholm, New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City. It also featured prominently in the Guggenheim’s 1999 show “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes,” and in the Tate’s landmark Kahlo survey in 2005, which later traveled to the Walker Art Center and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2007-08.
We will see this masterpiece again soon in a slate of upcoming exhibitions, including “Frida y Diego: The Last Dream” at MoMA in New York (March 22-September 7, 2026), “Frida: The Making of an Icon” at Tate Modern in London (June 25, 2026-January 3, 2027), “Frida Kahlo—The Painter” at Fondation Beyeler in Basel (January 31-May 17, 2027), and “The Autonomous Gaze” at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art and BOZAR Brussels (December 2026–July 2028).
Another standout of the evening, Salvador Dalí’s jewel-like Symbiose de la tête aux coquillages, captivated several bidders with its hallucinatory power, reaching $4,198,000 (est. $2-3 million) on the phone with an Asian bidder. With a distinguished exhibition history—from the Hayward Gallery’s Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1978), to Centre Pompidou’s “Salvador Dalí: rétrospective, 1920-1980 (1979-80),” to the Guggenheim’s “Surrealism: Two Private Eyes (1999)”—the work was acquired from Daniel Filipacchi in Paris in 1977 and remained with the consignor ever since, meaning they were also responsible for these museum loans.
The market for Paul Delvaux also remains strong, with his haunting Composition reaching the high end of its estimate and selling for $3.8 million (est. $2.5-3.5 million).
Female Surrealists remain a bright spot. First exhibited in 1953 as part of her solo show at Alexander Iolas in 1958 and formerly in the collection of William N Copley, Dorothea Tanning’s otherworldly Interior with Sudden Joy sold for $3.2 million (est. $2-3 million), setting a new record for the artist. Her previous record, Endgame (1944), achieved $2.3 million at Christie’s last May.
Dorothea Tanning’s otherworldly Interior with Sudden Joy sold for $3.2 million (est. $2-3 million), setting a new record for the artist. Sotheby’s
Highly coveted among collectors are the extremely rare paintings on masonite by Remedios Varo. Created shortly after Varo fled war-torn Europe, marking a pivotal shift in the artist’s storied practice, her Sans titre from 1943 approached the million mark after fees, landing at $952,500 (est. $500,000-700,000). Her current record, Revelación, was set last May at Christie’s at $6.22 million, surpassing her earlier $6.19 million record for Armonía (Autorretrato Sugerente) in 2020. Reflecting the growing curatorial effort to decentralize Surrealism beyond Paris, the recent major survey celebrating the movement’s centenary dedicates its final room to a compelling dialogue between Varo and Leonora Carrington.
Another striking leap came for the French artist, illustrator and long-underrecognized Surrealist insider Valentine Hugo, whose Le Crapaud de Maldoror climbed to $825,555 after seven bidders pushed it far beyond its $150,000-200,000 estimate. And for those who enjoy the footnotes of Surrealist intrigue, the piece dates from the period when Hugo was also romantically entangled with André Breton.
New attention to Surrealist influences in Latin American modernism also propelled Óscar Domínguez’s La Machine à écrire, which more than doubled its high estimate and sold for $3.7 million (est. $1-1.5 million). More broadly, as institutions work to broaden the canon, overlooked figures outside Surrealism’s Parisian core are gaining the long-overdue recognition they deserve.
One of them is Austrian-Mexican artist Wolfgang Paalen, a member of Abstraction-Création from 1934 to 1935, who joined the Surrealist movement after relocating to Mexico in 1935 and remained a significant figure until 1942. His revelatory, surreal landscape, Fata Alaska, set a new auction record for the artist at $1,016,000 (est. $350,000-450,000).
Another double record arrived courtesy of Hans Bellmer, who broke his auction record twice in one night. First, his uncanny gouache Main et Bras achieved $508,000 (est. $100,000-200,000). Then, a rare and intensely erotic oil on canvas—a medium he rarely used, being far better known for his photographs of dolls—nearly reached the million-dollar mark, fetching a record-setting $942,000 (est. $300,000-400,000). “The starting-point of desire, with respect to the intensity of its images, is not in a perceptible whole but in the detail,” Bellmer wrote in his anatomy of image. “The essential point to retain from the monstrous dictionary of analogies/antagonisms which constitute the dictionary of the image is that a given detail, such as a leg, is perceptible, accessible to memory and available, in short, is real.” It is a reflection that perfectly encapsulates the tension between fascination and horror, erotism and violence that animates all his seductive yet unsettling work.
A $97 million Modern Evening
The evening concluded with the core offering of the Modern Evening auction, which across its 29 lots generated $97 million, surpassing the pre-sale estimate of $71.1-101.9 million. One of the evening’s most anticipated lots, René Magritte’s Le Jockey Perdu, led the sale, achieving $12.3 million after fees. The exquisite gouache encapsulates Magritte’s signature play with visual paradoxes, maintaining the sense of spatial disorientation and uncanniness—alongside the sly playfulness—that runs through his entire oeuvre. First conceived as a papier collé in 1926, the motif was quickly followed by an oil of the same title, which headlined the artist’s first one-man exhibition in 1927 at Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels. Evidently fascinated by the theme, Magritte returned to the image of the lost jockey in multiple gouaches and oils throughout his career. The work came from the collection of the late real estate magnate Matthew Bucksbaum and his wife Carolyn, whose group of works in the sale brought a combined total of $25.2 million.
Despite the nearly three-hour marathon, the Modern session opened energetically with Joan Miró’s oil-on-burlap panel, Personnages et oiseau devant le soleil, also from the Bucksbaum Collection. It prompted a dynamic bidding battle between seven contenders, rapidly pushing it far beyond its $400,000-600,000 estimate to land at $2,368,000. The couple had acquired the work in 1998, when it last appeared at Sotheby’s, consigned by Perls Galleries.
Other top results of the evening included Georgia O’Keeffe’s Large Dark Red Leaves on White, which landed at $7.9 million, just shy of its high estimate. Jean Dubuffet’s Restaurant Rougeit II sat comfortably within its range, selling for $7.5 million. Degas’s pastel of three ballerinas, Trois danseuses, was chased by five bidders and fetched $5.8 million.
René Magritte’s Le Jockey Perdu led the Modern Evening sale, achieving $12.3 million after fees. Sotheby’s
A Modern sale would be incomplete without Monet. One of his famed Impressionistic views, capturing the shifting light around Rouen Cathedral, more than doubled its low estimate, selling for $7.4 million after a lengthy bidding war among six bidders in different geographies. The painting was practically fresh to auction, having remained in the Schlumberger collection for over 60 years, and appeared at auction for the first time last night.
Another artist who inspired strong interest was Childe Hassam, one of the leading American Impressionists and a central figure in what became known as the “Ten,” the group that broke from the Society of American Artists to champion a more progressive, modern approach at the turn of the 20th century. His Newport, October Sundown from 1901 was fiercely pursued by four bidders, achieving $2,002,000 above a $1.8 million high estimate. The painting came from the Sam and Marilyn Fox Collection, two prominent patrons and civic leaders from the St. Louis region, whose group generated a total of $2.7 million, exceeding its high estimate of $2.4 million.
As MoMA finally pays overdue tribute to the work of Cuban artist Wifredo Lam with a show that opened earlier this month, his Ídolo (Oyá/Divinité de l’air et de la mort) drew strong attention in the room, selling for $7.4 million and marking the second-highest auction price ever achieved for the artist. The renewed institutional spotlight clearly reinforced market confidence, positioning the canvas as another highlight of the evening and Lam as a name we will likely see rise further at auction in the coming seasons.
While the Modern section closed with white gloves, several lots still fell below their low estimates. Arthur Garfield Dove’s Rose and Locust Stump, backed by a guarantee and irrevocable bids, sold for $681,000, nearly half its low estimate, despite its extensive exhibition history. Andrew Wyeth’s dark landscape, East Waldoboro, also sold below expectations at $3,588,000 (est. $4-6 million). Jacques Lipchitz’s sculpture Baigneuse assise went for half its low estimate at $381,000, despite its prestigious provenance from the Geri Brawerman Collection, which generated a total of $16.7 million during the night.
Sotheby’s continued with its day sales on November 21, which delivered an additional aggregated total above $51 million, between the $46,404,999 of the Modern Day Sale and the $4,912,868 for the Exquisite Corpus Day session. Sotheby’s Contemporary day sale, held a few days earlier, generated $111.4 million, the highest total ever for a Day sale at Sotheby’s. The white-glove offering for the Lauder day session brought the total for the Lauder collection to $531.3 million.
Ultimately, Sotheby’s was the clear winner this round, generating a solid and unequivocally successful $1.173 billion with its Evening and Day sales. Meanwhile, Christie’s fall marquee sales totaled $965 million, while Phillips brought in $92,139,589 across its various sessions. In total, across all three auction houses, the November marquee sales have generated more than $2.2 billion, a number that suggests the market has rediscovered some of its energy. Miami, however, will be the real litmus test of the season, because what we saw in action and at auction this week was only the very top of the market.
A 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold Thursday for $54.7 million at a New York art auction, becoming the top sale price for a work by any female artist.
The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed — titled “El sueño (La cama)” or in English, “The Dream (The Bed)” — surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1,” which sold for $44.4 million in 2014.
The sale at Sotheby’s also topped Kahlo’s own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1949 painting “Diego and I,” depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for $34.9 million in 2021. Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.
Thursday’s auction for the painting drew bids from two collectors over 5 minutes before selling — at more than 1,000 times the price it sold for 45 years ago, according to Sotheby’s.
“When this painting sold at Sotheby’s in 1980 for $51,000, few could have imagined it returning 45 years later to command $55 million. This record-breaking result shows just how far we have come, not only in our appreciation of Frida Kahlo’s genius, but in the recognition of women artists at the very highest level of the market,” Anna Di Stasi, head of Latin American art at Sotheby’s, said in a news release. “In El sueño, Kahlo confronts her own fragility, yet what emerges is a portrait of extraordinary resilience and strength. It is an enduring testament to one of the most admired and sought-after artists of our time.”
A painting by Frida Kahlo titled “El sueño (La cama)” or “The Dream (The Bed),” is displayed at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London on Sept. 19, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
The self-portrait is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in private hands outside Mexico, where her body of work has been declared an artistic monument. Her works in both public and private collections within the country cannot be sold abroad or destroyed.
The painting comes from a private collection, whose owner has not been disclosed, and is legally eligible for international sale. Some art historians have scrutinized the sale for cultural reasons, while others have raised concern that the painting — last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s — could again disappear from public view after the auction. It has already been requested for upcoming exhibitions in cities including New York, London and Brussels.
The buyer’s identity was not disclosed.
The piece depicts Kahlo asleep in a wooden, colonial-style bed that floats in the clouds. She is draped in a golden blanket and entangled in crawling vines and leaves. Above the bed lies a skeleton figure wrapped in dynamite.
Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was upended by a bus accident at 18. She started to paint while bedridden, underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, then wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47.
During the years Kahlo was confined to her bed, she came to view it as a bridge between worlds as she explored her mortality.
The painting was the star of a sale of more than 100 surrealist works by artists including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning.
Kahlo resisted being labeled a surrealist, a style of art that’s dreamlike and centers on a fascination with the unconscious mind.
“I never painted dreams,” she once said. “I painted my own reality.”
In its catalog note, Sotheby’s said the painting “offers a spectral meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death.”
“The suspended skeleton is often interpreted as a visualization of her anxiety about dying in her sleep, a fear all too plausible for an artist whose daily existence was shaped by chronic pain and past trauma,” the catalog notes.
Phillips’s New York Evening Sale closed at $67.3 million—a 24 percent increase from last November. Photo: Jean Bourbon
The auction results of the past few years have confirmed it: dinosaurs are on trend. And not just as prehistoric relics or tools of scientific inquiry, but as symbols of timelessness and taste. More and more, fossil skeletons are being treated as investments—something that is, in some cases, more emotionally and symbolically resonant than contemporary art with which it might share the auction block. Is it the return of Jurassic Park? Or perhaps simply that most of us are captivated by dinosaurs in childhood? In any case, as nostalgia increasingly drives purchasing decisions across collectibles markets, dinos are unquestionably riding the wave.
Phillips has been strategically attuned to this shift—likely thanks to a younger cohort of specialists in its ranks. Instead of competing head-to-head with Sotheby’s and Christie’s single-owner sale narratives, the house has leaned into a different storytelling and marketing strategy, enhancing the symbolic power of artworks not through tales of glamorous collectors but by connecting the works to deep time.
Last night, CERA—a juvenile Triceratops skeleton dated to 66 million years ago and the first of its species ever to appear at auction—fetched $5,377,000 in the Out of This World auction (a specially curated section of the house’s November Modern & Contemporary sales). While that figure may seem modest when measured against the marquee masterpieces of the season, spirited bidding pushed it far beyond its $2,500,000-3,500,000 estimate and confirmed demand for this type of collectible. It also brought Phillips an audience that may never have engaged with the auction house otherwise; representatives confirmed that the skeleton sold to a private American collector new to the house, though global interest had poured in ahead of the sale from both private buyers and international institutions.
According to Miety Heiden, Phillips’ chairman for private sales, the result is a powerful testament to collectors’ evolving tastes. “More than ever, we’re seeing a desire for works that spark curiosity and transcend traditional categories. People are looking for objects that bring wonder and dialogue into a collection,” she said. “This result underscores the appetite for rare and extraordinary pieces that challenge convention and expand the boundaries of what collecting can be.”
At this year’s Frieze Masters—the only segment of the global brand typically reserved for million-dollar modernist and Old Masters works—two of the opening day’s first sales were paleontological. David Aaron placed a Triceratops head from the Late Cretaceous (circa 68 million years ago) within the first hour, followed later by a complete saber-toothed Nimravidae skeleton from the Oligocene (circa 33.7-23.8 million years ago), which sold for a strong six-figure sum. And no one has forgotten the Stegosaurus Apex, which shattered records at Sotheby’s in July 2024, hammering at $44.6 million—more than seven times its $4-6 million estimate—to billionaire Ken Griffin.
Phillips’s Evening Sale on November 19 achieved $67,307,850 across 33 lots, with a robust 94 percent sold by lot (only two passed) and 97 percent sold by value. It was a strong result, particularly considering the momentum already shown by Sotheby’s and Christie’s earlier in the week.
Leaving behind the cutting-edge but highly speculative ultra-contemporary works that once dominated its auction offerings, the evening’s turnout—up 24 percent from last November—was driven by a pairing of institutionally recognized blue-chip artists of the past century with recent market consolidations, presented for the first time alongside natural history highlights under the Out of This World label. The top lot was the highly anticipated Francis BaconStudy for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer (1967), which sold for $16,015,000—neatly within its $13-18 million estimate. Just after came Joan Mitchell’s monumental Untitled (1957-1958), a densely gestural canopy of color from her New York years, which brought in $14,290,000.
Another high-profile lot, Jackson Pollock’s dynamic 1947 work on paper, sold for $3,486,000—just below its high estimate. Mark Tansey’s Revelever (2012) sparked a competitive seven-minute bidding war that carried it to $4,645,000 against its $2,500,000-3,500,000 estimate. The hypnotic, conceptually loaded composition creates an optical push-pull that immerses viewers in a moment of driving toward a mountainous horizon, almost tasting the crisp air in its ultramarine haze.
Meanwhile, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Exercise (1984), a loosely composed, surreal tangle of hallucination and paint, achieved $3,852,000 after a $3-4 million estimate. Another Basquiat from 1982 followed close behind, selling for $1,225,500. Camille Pissarro’s late Impressionist Le pré et la maison d’Éragny, femme jardinant, printemps (1901) surpassed its high estimate, closing at $1,900,000. Max Ernst’s Dans les rues d’Athènes (1960) doubled its expectations with a $1,534,000 result, riding the continued momentum for Surrealism. Rising Colombian artist Olga de Amaral also saw strong results. Her luminous golden textile Alquimia 62 (1987) soared to $748,200, well above its $300,000-500,000 estimate. A few lots later, a red composition from the same series met its estimate midpoint, hammering at $516,000.
Firelei Báez set a new auction record—if only briefly. Her Daughter of Revolutions brought in $645,000 over a $300,000-500,000 estimate before being surpassed by a $1,111,250 result at Christie’s later that evening.
Women artists once again delivered some of the evening’s most compelling results. Amid growing recognition for Alma Thomas, her Untitled collage from 1968—a blueprint for her signature mosaic-like abstractions—sold for $477,300 over a $250,000-350,000 estimate. Ruth Asawa’s Untitled (S.230, Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layered Continuous Form within a Form) opened the sale with a burst of energy, doubling its $400,000-600,000 estimate to achieve $1,006,200 as her MoMA retrospective opened. Others performed well too: a Martha Jungwirth fetched $516,000 (estimate $200,000-300,000), and Lucy Bull’s Light Rain (2019) exceeded its high estimate at $490,200.
One of the night’s more surprising passed lots was a vivid 2022 abstraction by record-setting enfant prodige Jadé Fadojutimi, whose $800,000-1,200,000 estimate may have been too ambitious. Also unsold, despite its uniqueness and luxuriousness, was The Thunderbolt, the longest gold nugget ever discovered. Weighing 3,565 grams and measuring 50 centimeters, the 114.6-troy-ounce gold formation was estimated at $1.25-1.5 million but failed to find a buyer. Dug up by accident at Hogan’s Find in Western Australia, the rare natural formation was revealed by sheer chance.
According to Robert Manley, Phillips’s chairman for modern and contemporary art, the success of the evening was due in part to the house’s new priority bidding system, which helped secure early commitments and interest on most lots. That contributed to 91 percent of works selling within or above estimate. “The enthusiasm was made especially clear by the fact that we had 27 times the number of early selling bids for this sale as we had last November, partly a result of our introduction of Priority Bidding,” he told Observer. The results, he said, confirmed not only the enduring draw of blue-chip artists but also the market’s resilience and ongoing global demand. “With strong participation from collectors worldwide and competitive bidding across Impressionist, Postwar, Contemporary and Natural History offerings, tonight’s outcome reaffirms confidence in the long-term strength of this market.”
A Gustav Klimt portrait painting sold Tuesday for $236 million, a record for a modern art piece, at an auction where a solid gold, fully functional toilet satirizing the ultrarich also fetched $12.1 million.
The toilet, by Maurizio Cattelan — the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall — went up for auction Tuesday evening at Sotheby’s in New York. The starting bid for the 223-pound, 18-karat-gold work was about $10 million.
Cattelan has said the piece, titled “America,” satirizes superwealth.
“Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” he once said. Sotheby’s, for its part, calls the commode an “incisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.”
This image provided by Sotheby’s shows Gustav Klimt’s “Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer” (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), which sold for $236.4 million at auction Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in New York.
Sotheby’s via AP
Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold earlier in the night after a 20-minute bidding war, also becoming the most expensive work of art ever sold by Sotheby’s worldwide. The piece attracted bids from at least six collectors before finally selling.
The portrait was one of the few by the Austrian artist that survived World War II intact. It depicts the young daughter of one of Klimt’s patrons and was kept separate from his other paintings that were burned in a fire at an Austrian castle.
The piece was part of the collection of billionaire Leonard A. Lauder, heir to cosmetics giant The Estée Lauder Companies. He died earlier this year.
In 2024, a portrait of a young woman by Klimt that was long believed to be lost was sold at an auction in Vienna for $32 million. The painting, “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser,” was one of Klimt’s last pieces of work before he died in 1918.
Klimt worked mainly in Vienna in the early 1900s and he may be best known for “The Kiss.”
This Sept. 16, 2016 file image made from a video shows the 18-karat toilet, titled “America,” by Maurizio Cattelan in the restroom of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
AP file photo
The toilet, which had been owned by an unnamed collector, was one of two that Cattelan created in 2016. The other one was displayed in 2016 at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, which pointedly offered to lend it to President Trump when he asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting. Then the piece was stolen while on display in England at Blenheim Palace, the country manor where Winston Churchill was born.
Two men were convicted in the toilet heist, but it’s unclear what they did with the loo. Investigators aren’t privy to its whereabouts but believe it probably was broken up and melted down.
“America” was exhibited at Sotheby’s New York headquarters in the weeks leading up to the auction.
The collection of Robert F. Weis and Patricia G. Ross Weis has an estimate in excess of $180 million. Christie’s
The November marquee sales in New York are among the most anticipated events on the global art calendar and the final litmus test of the market’s health after the London and Paris fairs and auctions. Leading the $1.6 billion New York auction week this November is a concentration of high-end, big-name collections, as single-owner sales have become an increasingly important tool for auction houses to secure major consignments and build momentum around a notable name and provenance. “A well-known individual definitely drives interest,” Elizabeth Siegel, vice president and head of private and iconic collections at Christie’s, told Observer.
Over the past decade these types of sales have accounted for 15.6 percent of total value, according to ArtTactic, reaching a peak of 31.3 percent in 2022 with the Paul G. Allen Collection. In the first 10 months of 2025 they continued to outperform with white gloves and records, reaching 18.5 percent of global auction value. In the final week of November in New York alone, single-owner sales are estimated at $706.8 million of total auction value. “A single-owner sale totally elevates prices. It gives them a real boost,” Lisa Dennison, chairman of Sotheby’s Americas, confirmed.
As New York’s fall auctions approach, here is a breakdown of the most anticipated collections set to appear as single-owner sales or within the marquee offerings, along with the top lots that have made headlines in the months leading up to this pivotal week for the art market.
The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at Sotheby’s
Gustav Klimt, Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), 1914-16. Estimate in excess of $150 million. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
The $400 million Leonard A. Lauder: Collector sale on November 18 is one of the most anticipated auctions of the season, with Sotheby’s presenting a 24-lot evening sale at its new Breuer Building headquarters. Following Lauder’s passing last June, both Christie’s and Sotheby’s reportedly competed to secure what is considered one of the year’s most important consignments. Sotheby’s ultimately won the mandate, securing 55 masterworks from one of America’s great collectors and philanthropists, longtime Whitney patron Leonard A. Lauder, which will be split between the dedicated evening sale and a day session the following morning.
The undisputed star of the sale is Gustav Klimt’s Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer, estimated in excess of $150 million and poised to surpass the artist’s current auction record of $108.8 million (£85.3 million), also set at Sotheby’s with Dame mit Fächer (Lady with Fan) in London in 2023. Executed between 1914 and 1916, the portrait is among Klimt’s most refined full-length depictions, portraying the young Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of two of his greatest patrons. It epitomizes Vienna’s Golden Age, a moment when youth, beauty, color and ornamental splendor merged into a vision of pure elegance, while also revealing the influence of fin-de-siècle exoticism. The composition’s flattened perspective and sinuous lines echo Japonaiserie and Chinoiserie, visible in the Asian-inspired motifs floating around Lederer’s Poiret-style gown, a nod to Klimt’s fascination with Chinese and Japanese art and textiles. Confiscated by the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz in 1939 and restituted to the Lederer heirs in 1946, the painting was later acquired from the family by Serge Sabarsky, an early advocate of German and Austrian modernism in the United States, before entering Lauder’s collection in the mid-1980s.
Other exceptional Klimts in the sale are Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) (1908), an exquisite example of the artist’s floral-period landscapes with an estimate in excess of $80 million, and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee) (1916), a depiction of an undisturbed lakeside idyll that reveals Klimt’s growing affinity with Van Gogh’s expressive brushwork, estimated in excess of $70 million. The number and high-quality works by artists from the Vienna Secession in the collection can be attributed to Leonard A. Lauder’s connection with his brother Ronald S. Lauder, one of the most notable collectors of the movement and co-founder and president of the Neue Galerie in New York. Both were sons of Estée and Joseph Lauder, founders of The Estée Lauder Companies.
Additional highlights include an emotionally charged, psychologically complex Edvard Munch, Sankthansnatt (Johannisnacht) (Midsummer Night) (1901-03), estimated at $20 million, six bronzes by Henri Matisse expected to realize a combined $30 million and an immaculate graphite grid by Agnes Martin, The Garden, exemplifying her mastery of geometric precision and meditative restraint.
The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis at Christie’s
Rothko’s No. 31 (Yellow Stripe), 1958. Estimate on request, in the region of $50 million.
Over more than 50 years, Patricia G. Ross Weis and Robert F. Weis assembled a collection that reflected not only the evolution of 20th-century art between Paris and New York but also the life journey they shared. The 18-lot single-owner Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis sale on November 17 is expected to generate between $92.35 million and $136.7 million, accounting for more than half of the collection’s total estimated value of $180 million, which includes another 80 works that will be distributed across additional auctions and categories.
The top lot is a vibrant yellow-and-orange Mark Rothko painted in 1958, the same year the artist completed his monumental murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan’s Seagram Building. Acquired by the couple from PaceWildenstein in 1995, the work boasts an extensive exhibition history, including its inclusion in the important AbEx show the Beyeler Foundation staged in 1989. Estimated at around $50 million and backed by a third-party guarantee, the canvas stands as one of Rothko’s most powerful expressions of American abstraction, its layered chromatic fields pulsing with contained, tormented energy and sublime atmospheric depth.
Another star lot in the collection is Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red and Blue (estimate: $20-30 million), signed and dated “PM 39-41.” This rare-to-auction painting belongs to the artist’s transatlantic period, as Mondrian began it in Europe and completed it in New York between 1939 and 1941. Its distinguished exhibition history includes “Mondrian: Nature to Abstraction” at the Tate in 1997. The work exemplifies Mondrian’s rigorous balance of line, color and luminous white ground, an essential yet conceptually intricate dialogue at the heart of his practice.
Other anticipated works include an early Fauvist landscape by Georges Braque, Henri Matisse’s lyrical Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre) from his Nice period (estimate: $15-25 million), and Pablo Picasso’s La Lecture (Marie-Thérèse), a portrait of his muse estimated in the region of $40 million. Another exemplary work, one that justifies the sale title “A Tale Between Two Cities,” is the bold gestural abyssal composition Pierre Soulages painted in Peinture 161 x 200 cm, 14 novembre 1958, offered at $5-7 million, which resonates with the essential black marks on a white ground in Franz Kline’s Placidia from 1961 (estimate: $10-15 million).
Robert F. Weis made his fortune as chairman of Weis Markets Inc., a family-run food company founded in 1912 in rural Pennsylvania, where the couple lived. A lifelong learner and avid reader, he developed a deep appreciation for art. Patricia Weis, born in New York City, shared his passion for art, architecture and design, an interest first sparked by an uncle in the fashion industry. She began collecting after meeting Lucie Rie and Hans Coper on a trip to London. Together, the pair became prominent philanthropists supporting educational, cultural, civic and medical institutions: Patricia served on the boards of Bard College and Franklin & Marshall College, while Robert was a Sterling Fellow at Yale University and sat on its Committee on Buildings and Grounds. They also championed Jewish causes and supported the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Metropolitan Opera.
The Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection at Sotheby’s
A $40 million Vincent van Gogh, Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes), leads this Sotheby’s sale. Photo: Michael Tropea | Courtesy of Sotheby’s
The other major consignment Sotheby’s has secured for November is the Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection, which is expected to generate a total in excess of $120 million. Known for founding the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1979—often called the “Nobel of architecture”—the Chicago-based couple extended their devotion to creative excellence beyond the built environment, assembling a collection that reflects the breadth and rigor of their cultural philanthropy.
Headlining the November 20 Cindy and Jay Pritzker Collection sale, which immediately precedes Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction at 7:30 p.m., is Vincent van Gogh’s Romans Parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) (1887), a radiant still life from the artist’s Paris period in which a stack of yellow-bound books becomes a portrait of his voracious intellect. Estimated at $40 million, the painting was acquired by the Pritzkers in 1994 through Richard L. Feigen & Co. and boasts an extensive literature and exhibition history spanning major institutions across Europe and the United States, including the show “Van Gogh à Paris” at the Musée d’Orsay (1988), “Vincent van Gogh Paintings” at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam (1990), and “Vincent van Gogh and the Modern Movement, 1890-1914” at Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (1990-91). The work last appeared publicly in “Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South” at the Art Institute of Chicago (2001-02), “The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters” at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2010), and “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms” at the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). The preparatory painting for this canvas is held in the Van Gogh Museum’s permanent collection.
Comparing the present work to Piles of French Novels in the Van Gogh Museum, scholars have described it as particularly revealing of the artist’s stylistic transition. If the earlier study, flatter in tone and more monochromatic, reflects his fascination with Japanese prints through its block-like composition and restrained palette, the painting in the Pritzker Collection reintroduces depth and vitality through rhythmic dashes and loose strokes of the Neo-Impressionist style Van Gogh adopted in his final Paris months.
Among the other highlights of the sale are Henri Matisse’s sensuous triptych Léda et le cygne (1944-46), estimated at $7-10 million, and Paul Gauguin’s La Maison de Pen du, gardeuse de vache (1889), painted during his Pont-Aven period and carrying a $6-8 million estimate. Additional highlights include Max Beckmann’s Der Wels (Catfish) ($5-7 million), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Hallesches Tor, Berlin (1913, $3-5 million), a large-scale outdoor sculpture by Joan Miró ($4-6 million), and a lyrical Camille Pissarro landscape from his second Pontoise period ($1.2-1.8 million).
The breadth of the Pritzker holdings will extend beyond the November sale, with further lots offered next month in Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts, Sculpture and Works of Art, Chinese Works of Art, and Design auctions. Together, the ensemble is expected to bring tens of millions of dollars across multiple sales.
The Elaine Wynn Collection at Christie’s
Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #40 (1971). Estimate: $15-25 million. Christie’s
Christie’s also secured the remarkable collection of Elaine Wynn, the late philanthropist and “Queen of Las Vegas,” who passed away this April. Celebrated for her discerning eye and the remarkable assemblage she built both alongside and independently of her former husband, casino magnate Steve Wynn, her estate is estimated at over $75 million. Nine of the top works will be featured in the 20th Century Evening Sale on November 17, two in the 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19, with the remainder to follow in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale.
The highlights from her collection span centuries and movements yet share the same standard of excellence that defined Wynn’s collecting ethos. On the Modern side, the top lot is Richard Diebenkorn’s transcendent Ocean Park #40, which will be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale with an estimate of $15-25 million. The work returns to the rostrum just as Gagosian announces its representation of the Diebenkorn estate and inaugurates a dedicated exhibition at its Upper East Side gallery. Wynn acquired the painting at Sotheby’s in 2021, when it achieved a then-record $27.3 million. Diebenkorn’s auction record now stands at $46.4 million, set by his 1965 Recollections of a Visit to Leningrad at Christie’s New York in November 2023, placing the current estimate well within range yet poised to surpass it amid renewed market attention following Gagosian’s endorsement. Before its last sale, Ocean Park #40 was featured in the traveling museum exhibition dedicated to the series at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Orange County Museum of Art (2011-2012), as well as Acquavella Galleries’ 2018 show pairing Diebenkorn’s California scenes with those of Wayne Thiebaud.
Other top lots include J.M.W. Turner’s poetic Ehrenbreitstein (estimate: $12-18 million) and a refined Parisian scene by Georges Seurat. On the postwar side, headline works are Lucian Freud’s late self-portrait (estimate: $15-25 million) and Joan Mitchell’s sunflower-hued explosion of color and gesture (estimate: $12-18 million).
Also presented as part of Christie’s 44-lot 21st Century Evening Sale on November 19, the Edlis|Neeson Collection is described by the auction house as a rare example of a carefully curated ensemble of postwar icons that together trace the evolution of modern and contemporary art. Austrian-born American collector and philanthropist Stefan Edlis and his life partner Gael Neeson began assembling their collection in the 1970s, gradually filling their landmark apartment on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile with works that James Rondeau, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, once called “one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary art in existence.” In 2015, the couple donated 44 works to the Art Institute, a gift the museum described as transformative. Born in Vienna in 1925, Stefan Edlis fled Nazi-occupied Austria for the U.S. in 1941 and later founded Apollo Plastics Corporation. In 1974, he met Gael Neeson, and together they began a lifelong pursuit of art collecting, mentored by Chicago collector Gerald Elliot. Their first major acquisition, Piet Mondrian’s Large Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow (1977), marked the beginning of a collection that evolved toward Pop, Conceptual and contemporary art, featuring icons like Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, as well as a later generation similarly engaged with Pop and mass culture, including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Ugo Rondinone.
One of the top lots is Ed Ruscha’s How Do You Do?, coming to auction amid strong market momentum for the artist following MoMA’s major retrospective last year. Part of Ruscha’s coveted mountain series, this laconic phrase floats diagonally rather than horizontally, suspended over a meticulously rendered alpine landscape, each ridge and summit bathed in deep blue light. Acquired directly from Gagosian in 2004 and shown that same year in the Aspen Art Museum’s Ed Ruscha: Mountain Paintings, the work makes its auction debut with an estimate of $5-7 million, secured by a third-party guarantee.
Another highlight is Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper (Yellow) (1986), acquired from Gagosian in 2002 and now estimated at $6-8 million, also backed by a guarantee from Christie’s. The auction house describes it as the culmination of Warhol’s career, a meditation on the dualities of mass media and mortality. Created just a month before his death and first exhibited in Milan’s Palazzo delle Stelline, directly across from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, the series was Warhol’s way of “making Leonardo exciting again.” The work reflects his lifelong fascination with the iconography of images, their power, repetition and eventual loss of aura through mass reproduction. As more than 3,000 visitors attended the Milan show, The Last Supper came to embody Warhol’s own final self-reflection, a farewell from the artist who became as famous and as mythic as the masters he reinterpreted.
Also featured in the sale are Warhol’s Skull (estimate: $800,000-1.2 million), which will open the Evening Sale, and his Oxidation Painting (Diptych) (1978), acquired from Skarstedt Gallery in 2017 (estimate: $900,000-1.2 million, guaranteed). Other highlights include a Diego Giacometti bronze table (estimate: $3-5 million), Richard Prince’s Double Nurse (estimate: $3-5 million), and Jeff Koons’s Gazing Ball (Courbet Sleep) (estimate: $600,000-800,000), acquired from Gagosian in 2015. The sale also includes works by Cindy Sherman, George Condo, Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann, alongside two Giacometti library tables.
Perhaps the most provocative work from the collection, although not for sale, is Maurizio Cattelan’s Him (2001), which will be viewable by request during the November pre-sale exhibition, a haunting reminder of the collection’s daring and thought-provoking spirit.
The Max N. Berry Collections at Christie’s
Alberto Giacometti, Buste d’homme (Diego), conceived in 1959/cast in 1960-1961. Bronze with brown patina, height: 15.3/4 in. (40 cm.), estimate $5-8 million. Courtesy of Christie’s
Debuting in the 20th Century Evening Sale this November, the collection of connoisseur Max Berry brings to auction one of the season’s most wide-ranging and valuable encyclopedic consignments. Spanning more than 30 categories, the collection, which is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars across several years of sales, reflects Berry’s lifetime of passionate and discerning collecting, driven more by curiosity than by market fashion.
Among the top lots hitting the rostrum during the November marquee evening sale is Calder’s Acrobats (1929), a seminal wire sculpture estimated at $5-7 million. Composed of two delicately balanced figures mounted on a wooden base, the piece dates to the artist’s pivotal Paris years when he began transforming his toy-maker’s ingenuity into formal sculptural language. Acrobats is directly linked to Calder’s famed Cirque Calder (1926-31), the hand-built miniature circus that anticipated his lifelong fascination with movement and performance. Its appearance at auction coincides with the Whitney Museum’s centennial tribute “High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100.”
Also included in the sale is Berry’s Alexander Calder Untitled (1938), a rare yellow hanging mobile estimated at $1.5-2 million. Evoking the artist’s childlike sense of wonder, the sculpture’s continuous motion, no matter how still the air, epitomizes Calder’s mastery of balance, rhythm and levity. Completing the lineup of modern masters from the collection are Giacometti’s Buste d’homme (Diego), a bronze portrait of the artist’s brother, cast and signed 2/6 with an estimate of $5-8 million, and his still life Nature morte (1938), estimated at $1.5-2 million, a testament to the artist’s existential and essential synthesis of form and psychological depth.
Additional works from Berry’s collection, including Judaica, American art and Chinese art, will be offered in stages through 2027, underscoring both the scope and scholarly depth of a lifetime spent collecting with intellect, passion and humanity. As Berry told Observer in a recent interview, his ultimate wish is that the works are enjoyed, whether by private collectors or in institutions. “It will be wonderful if a museum acquires some of them and makes them public, where they can sit alongside other objects of a similar nature to tell the story of their artistry and their times.”
The Schlumberger Collection at Sotheby’s
Claude Monet, Vue de Rouen depuis la côte Sainte-Catherine, 1892. Sotheby’s
Similarly eclectic is the Schlumberger Collection, which Sotheby’s secured for this season. It debuted in Paris during their Surrealism and Its Legacy auction, with additional lots now scheduled to appear in New York during the Modern Evening Auction on November 20 and Modern Day Auction on November 21. Further works will be in the Important Design, Fine Jewelry and Fine Books & Manuscripts sales held between November and December 2025. This singular ensemble, bridging centuries of art and design and reflecting the legacy of one of Europe’s great industrial and cultural dynasties, was founded by brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, whose pioneering work in geophysics revolutionized the energy industry. The family also became renowned for its refined patronage of the arts. That legacy continued through Marcel’s daughter, Anne Schlumberger, whose discerning eye was shaped by her lifelong engagement with Surrealism, architecture and design.
Among the works coming from the collection is Claude Monet’s Vue de Rouen, a luminous and atmospheric canvas painted at the dawn of his famed cathedral series and set to be one of the top lots in Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction. Fresh to the block with an estimate of $3,000,000-4,000,000, this iconic Monet embodies a pure luminous atmosphere as the artist focuses on the transitory phenomenology of light and color, reaching a level of abstraction close to raw sensorial perception before any codification or formalization. The other highlight of the collection is François-Xavier Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar (1976), a pièce unique and the first and only example the artist created in copper, serving as the prototype for his later bronze editions.
Property from the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art at Christie’s
Claude Monet, Nymphéas. Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 29 in. (92 x 73.6 cm.). Christie’s
For more than three decades, the works resided in Kawamura’s purpose-built museum near Tokyo, where they brought international visitors face-to-face with the great masters of modern art. Following its closure in March 2025, the institution announced plans to divest around 280 works through auctions and private sales, aiming to raise at least ¥10 billion (approximately $68 million).
Leading Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale from the museum’s collection is Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (1907), one of the artist’s most dazzling depictions of his Giverny waterlily pond, estimated at $40-60 million. Acquired in 1970 from the Estate of Albert J. Dreitzer through Sotheby’s, the painting has been a cornerstone of Kawamura’s galleries ever since, its vertical composition capturing the pond’s luminous surface in an almost abstract symphony of reflection and light.
Other highlights include Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Jeune femme arrangeant des fleurs (estimate: $8-12 million), Marc Chagall’s Le Rêve de Paris (estimate: $4-6 million) and Henri Matisse’s Femme au chapeau bleu (estimate: $3-5 million), which will also be offered in the 20th Century Evening Sale.
The October evening sales brought the London auction houses their highest totals in years. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Sales aren’t just buoyant at Frieze this week—London’s auction houses also saw their strongest results in years, signaling renewed confidence at the top of the market. Kicking off the action, Christie’s 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale on October 15 achieved a robust £106,925,400 ($142,852,000), marking the auction house’s best Frieze Week evening sale in more than seven years. The total was up 30 percent from last year, with 92 percent sold by lot and 90 percent sold by value. Katharine Arnold and Keith Gill, vice-chairmen of 20th/21st century art, Christie’s Europe, reported entering the week with confidence and “carefully priced material,” noting a “spirited and well-attended” public viewing at King Street. “We are proud to have realized such a solid outcome during Frieze Week, a moment that highlights the energy and cultural vitality of London’s art scene,” they told press.
Leading the sale was Peter Doig’s monumental Ski Jacket (1994), which sold for £14,270,000 ($19,064,720) against a £6,000,000-8,000,000 estimate after more than 13 minutes of fierce bidding between six contenders. Carrying a third-party guarantee, the painting had been acquired in 1994 by Danish collector Ole Faarup, and 100 percent of the proceeds will now go to his foundation. This unusual arrangement also helped Christie’s secure two additional Doigs, despite the artist having become a rare presence at auction.
With an extensive exhibition history, Doig’s Country Rock (1998-1999) nearly hit seven figures in sterling—though it comfortably did so in dollars—achieving £9,210,000 ($12,304,560). A third, more abstract and heavily textured work, also acquired by Faarup in 1994, sold a few lots later just shy of its high estimate at £635,000. The strong results coincided with the opening of Doig’s new show at the Serpentine in London, further fueling demand.
Christie’s evening opened with a standout result for Domenico Gnoli, whose hyperrealistic painting fetched £977,000, doubling its low estimate. Immediately after, a more impressionistic landscape by René Magritte landed at £762,990—well above expectations—reinforcing both continued momentum for the artist and the broader strength of surrealism. Later in the sale, Magritte’s drawing La veillée (The Vigil) exceeded its £500,000 high estimate, selling for £812,800.
The 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale at Christie’s resulted in several new artist records. Photo: Guy Bell | Courtesy of Christie’s
Picasso, as usual, delivered dependable results, with several works selling above or within estimate, including the £2,002,000 oil and ink on panel Chevalier, pages et moine. The modern and impressionist offerings also performed within expectations, largely due to the quality of the material: a Marc Chagall painting fetched £2,246,000, while a lyrical bucolic scene by Nabis painter Maurice Denis sold for £1,697,000. Meanwhile, a horizontal abstract work by Hurvin Anderson exceeded expectations, fetching £3,222,000.
The sale also set several new world auction records, underscoring the ongoing momentum for women artists and long-overlooked names being rediscovered. Paula Rego’s Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” (1995) soared to £3,466,000 ($4.63 million), setting a new landmark record for the artist. Suzanne Valadon’s Deux nus ou Le bain (1923) followed with a £1,016,000 ($1.36 million) record. Contemporary sculptor Annie Morris’s Bronze Stack 9, Copper Blue (2015) achieved £482,600 ($644,754), while Danish artist Esben Weile Kjær set his first auction record with Aske and Johan upside down kissing in Power Play at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND (2020), which sold for £25,400 ($33,934).
Among the few unsold works of the night were Yoshitomo Nara’s drawing Haze Days, which failed to find a buyer at its ambitious £6.5-8.5 million estimate, and a gray monochrome by Gerhard Richter—even with the artist opening a major survey at the Fondation Louis Vuitton during Paris Art Week. A black Blinky Palermo also went unsold, while a colorful but slightly less iconic Nicholas Party work, Tree Trunks, was withdrawn ahead of the sale.
Notably, Christie’s reported that 56 percent of buyers in the evening sale came from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with only 28 percent from the Americas and 16 percent from the Asia-Pacific region. This confirms revived demand in the regional market, as also evidenced earlier in the day by the heavy attendance at Frieze.
A £17.6M Bacon headlined at Sotheby’s
Led by a £17.6 million Francis Bacon, Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction closed at $63.5 million. While the total was less than half of Christie’s the night before, the comparison needs context: this was Sotheby’s third major London evening sale since March—whereas it was Christie’s first of the season. Sotheby’s has already staged two major white-glove sales this year—the £101 million Karpidas collection auction in September and the £84 million Summer Evening Sale—meaning that with last night’s results, the house has now sold £233 million worth of modern and contemporary art in London since March. Moreover, the £63.5 million total marked the highest October evening sale result since 2023, up 25 percent from the previous year.
Since March, Sotheby’s has sold £240 million worth of Modern and Contemporary art in London. Courtesy Sotheby’s
“Frieze is always a special time for London, with so many collectors in town whose presence we always feel in our sales,” Ottilie Windsor, co-head of contemporary art, Sotheby’s London, told Observer. “It was great to have them with us tonight and to see so much live action in the room, helping sustain the strong momentum we’ve built over the past few seasons here.”
The Francis Bacon result came after 20 minutes of suspense and fierce bidding across multiple phone specialists and a bidder in the room, pushing the final price to nearly double its £6-9 million estimate. In U.S. dollars, the hammer plus fees rose to $17.6 million. For comparison, the last notable Bacon—Portrait of Man with Glasses II—sold at Christie’s in March for £6,635,000 ($8.4 million), and that work was almost a third smaller. Another, smaller Bacon, closer in scale to Christie’s example, sold here for £5,774,000 ($7.3 million). Bacon’s record still stands at $142.4 million, set at Christie’s New York in 2013 with his triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud.
The sale opened strong, with solid results for several younger contemporary artists who have recently drawn both market and institutional attention. At lot one, a painting by Ser Serpas landed at £27,940 ($35,700)—just under estimate but still enough to set a new auction record for the artist. The California-born painter, who studied in Switzerland and gained early recognition there, was recently included in a MoMA PS1 exhibition and held a solo show at Kunsthalle Basel during the June fairs.
Two of the hottest rising names in recent auctions—driven largely by Asian demand and limited primary-market availability—followed. An abstract by Emma McIntyre, now a Zwirner favorite, sold for £50,800 ($65,000), and Yu Nishimura achieved the same price. Both works carried estimates of £40,000-60,000, reflecting the tight competition at this level.
In between, a 2009 painting by Hernan Bas acquired from Perrotin sold just above its low estimate, likely to its guarantor, at £254,000 ($323,000). Momentum continued for Lucy Bull, whose kaleidoscopic abstraction from 2021—originally acquired from Paris gallery High Art—more than doubled its top estimate of £500,000 ($635,000), landing at £1,260,000 ($1.6 million) after being chased by five bidders, most from Asia.
Overall, the auction confirmed the ongoing strength of the market for women artists, all of whom sold above estimate. Sotheby’s also posted strong results for Paula Rego: her pastel on paper Snow White Playing with her Father’s Trophies sold within estimate for £900,000 (about $1.15 million), while Jenny Saville’s charcoal study exceeded its high estimate, selling for £533,000 (around $675,000).
Among other notable six-figure results, a monumental El Anatsui sold just shy of its high estimate at £1,999,000 (about $2.53 million). Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (The Arm) from 1982—a pivotal year in the artist’s rise—landed squarely within estimate at £5,530,000 (approximately $7 million). Andy Warhol’s Four Pink Marilyn (Reversal) followed, selling within estimate for £4,326,000 (about $5.5 million).
The masters also held firm. Both of Auguste Rodin’s monumental sculptures from his seminal series The Burghers of Calais sold within estimate to a collector in the room: Jean de Fiennes, vêtu, Grand Modèle achieved £762,000 ($1 million), while Pierre de Wiessant, vita, Grand Modèle, vêtu sold for £889,000 ($1.2 million).
The market for Lucio Fontana also showed signs of recovery—at least for major works. His rare blue 14-slashed Concetto spaziale, Attese sold just above estimate at £2.8 million (about $3.7 million) following a fierce bidding war among four potential buyers. The deep blue of the canvas was inspired by Yves Klein’s IKB pigment—but Klein’s own Untitled Fire Colour Painting (FC 28), which appeared one lot earlier, surprisingly went unsold after failing to meet its £1.8-2 million estimate ($2.3-2.5 million), despite both an irrevocable bid and a guarantee.
Other unsold works of the night included paintings by Frank Auerbach and Daniel Richter. Still, Sotheby’s achieved a healthy 89 percent sell-through rate by lot.
On October 17, Sotheby’s also staged a single-owner sale of 17 iPad drawings by David Hockney from his celebrated series The Arrival of Spring. The results were remarkable: the group doubled its high estimate to reach £6.2 million ($8.3 million), achieving a white-glove sale and setting a new auction record for the artist. With this result, Sotheby’s London has now brought in £240 million (approximately $304 million) since March. Notably, American buyers accounted for 40 percent of the purchasers in the Hockney sale, underscoring the continued global demand for blue-chip British artists.
A £2,374,000 Basquiat tops Phillips’ London Evening Sale
On October 16 at 5 p.m., Phillips hosted its London Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale, achieving a total of £10,332,200 ($13,884,410) across 22 lots. The auction was more modest—and less successful—than the others, posting a 32 percent drop compared to last year after four lots failed to sell and four others were withdrawn before the start. The evening was led by a new auction record for Emma McIntyre: Seven types of ambiguity (2021) sold for £167,700 ($225,355) from a modest £50,000-70,000 estimate, edging past her previous record of $201,600 set in May 2025 at Phillips Hong Kong. The second-highest lot of the night was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (Pestus) (1982), which comfortably met its pre-sale estimate at £2,374,000 ($3,190,181).
An energetic moment from Phillips’s London Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale. Courtesy Phillips
Once again, contemporary women artists confirmed their momentum at Phillips, reaching a high point after Emma McIntyre’s record-setting result when Flora Yukhnovich’s My Body knows Un-Heard of Songs (2017) fetched £1,276,000 ($1,714,689) against a £900,000-1,500,000 estimate.
Opening the sale was a purple-and-pink abstraction by Martha Jungwirth—now a familiar presence across Thaddaeus Ropac’s fair booths—which exceeded expectations at £180,600. A few lots later, an early work by Sasha Gordon sold just shy of its high estimate at £116,100. Demand for Gordon has been reignited by her blockbuster solo debut at Zwirner in New York, which made her the youngest artist represented by the mega-gallery. Painted in 2019 during her studies, Drive Through marks a transitional moment in her shift toward the more discursive, cartoon-inflected style that catapulted her into the global spotlight.
Later in the sale, Noah Davis’s Mitrice Richardson (2012) found a buyer within estimate at £451,500 ($606,726), while Derek Fordjour’s Regatta Pattern Study (2020) fetched £528,900 ($710,736), surpassing its high estimate of £500,000. Other notable results included Sean Scully’s Wall of Light Summer Night 5.10 (2010), which achieved £967,500 ($1,300,127) against a £600,000-800,000 estimate, and Robert Rauschenberg’s Gospel Yodel (Salvage Series), which sold for £709,500 ($953,426), more than doubling its £350,000-550,000 estimate. A 2012 sculpture by Bernar Venet fetched £516,000 ($693,401) from a £250,000-350,000 estimate, reflecting the artist’s rising demand—particularly in Asia.
Not everything landed. A Warhol-inspired Banksy portrait of Kate Moss, estimated at £700,000-1,000,000, failed to find a buyer, while a cacophonic abstract work by Sigmar Polke from 1983-84 also went unsold, likely due to its overly ambitious £600,000-800,000 estimate relative to current market demand for the artist.
For Olivia Thornton, Phillips’s head of modern and contemporary art, Europe, the overall positive auction reflected “the vibrancy of contemporary collecting” and reaffirmed London’s enduring magnetism: “London remains the cultural crossroads of the global art market.”
Last Spring, Kasmin New York staged “Les Lalanne: Zoophites,” featuring works by the acclaimed French designers drawn entirely from the collection of their eldest daughter, Caroline Hamisky Lalanne. Courtesy of Kasmin
While global auction sales slipped 6.2 percent in the first half of 2025—with post-war and contemporary art down 19.3 percent to $1.22 billion, impressionist and modern sales dropping 7.7 percent and luxury barely budging (down 0.5 percent to $805.9 million)—design, decorative arts and furniture experienced significant momentum. According to ArTactic, the category surged 20.4 percent to reach $172 million in 2025, compared to $143 million the previous year. This growth occurred despite concerns over new tariffs. While fine art remains exempt from tariffs due to a legal loophole, design objects, antiquities and other collectibles are not, yet the market continues to thrive. This sustained growth is driven by a broader collector base and ongoing institutional interest, making it worth a deeper analysis of its various tiers and areas of activity.
Recent numbers from design auctions show strong growth: Sotheby’s design sales in New York this June achieved $37.5 million, followed by Christie’s with $23.6 million and Phillips, which staged just one sale, bringing in $4 million. Altogether, the June auctions saw a 62.3 percent year-on-year increase—proof that, at least for now, the design market is not just holding steady but gaining momentum. In the same period last year, Sotheby’s reported $19.5 million, Christie’s $15.5 million and Phillips $5.1 million across two sales with significantly more inventory.
The first half of 2025 marked a landmark period for design at Sotheby’s, according to chairman and co-worldwide head of 20th Century design, Jodi Pollack. Fueled by strong global demand, record-setting prices and an expanding international collector base, the market saw particular momentum among new and younger buyers, with increased cross-category collecting. Sotheby’s reported a $75 million combined total across New York and Paris this season, among the highest series totals ever for Sotheby’s Design sales worldwide. “These exceptional results reflect the galvanizing strength of the global design market and the discerning collectors who continue to passionately pursue rare pieces of extraordinary quality,” Pollack commented.
The Lalanne obsession continued its upward trajectory, but records were also shattered in unexpected areas: the monumental Danner Memorial Window—designed by Agnes Northrop for Tiffany Studios—achieved a staggering $12.4 million last November, setting a new auction world record for Tiffany glass. Not far behind, Frank Lloyd Wright’s double-pedestal lamp reached $7.5 million after an eleven-minute bidding war this May, marking another record in the category this year.
Tiffany Studios’ Stillman Memorial Window sold for $2,390,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2025. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Another magnificent glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, The Stillman Memorial Window, sold in June at Sotheby’s for $2,390,000 (estimate: $1.5-2.5 million) as part of the sale Masterpieces by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Featuring The Ann and Robert Fromer Collection. The sale generated $6.3 million (estimate: $3.6-$5.6 million) with 96 percent sold by lot and nearly 60 percent of lots selling above their high estimates. Notably, 21 percent of buyers participating in Sotheby’s design sales this June were new to the auction house.
Strong institutional demand is also driving the surge in the market for Tiffany Studios pieces, with museums actively acquiring the studio’s masterworks. In 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part, 10-foot-tall, 7-foot-wide Garden Landscape, while this past May, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced its acquisition of the monumental stained glass window Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window).
Meanwhile, the remarkable market surge for François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne continues unabated, cementing the duo as blue-chip fixtures in the design-art hybrid space. According to Artprice, the average auction price for their works has more than quadrupled since 2015, with major pieces now regularly surpassing six figures. The current auction record belongs to François-Xavier’s 1964 Rhinocrétaire I, which sold for €18.33 million ($19.4 million) at Christie’s Paris in 2023.
Between 2019 and 2024, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sold over 700 works from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their daughters, Dorothée and Marie, through a series of high-profile auctions in Paris and New York, generating a combined total of $330.2 million.
Demand remains strong—just this June, François-Xavier’s Grand Rhinocrétaire II (2003) fetched $16.4 million at Sotheby’s, five times its low estimate and accounting for nearly a quarter of the auction week’s total revenue. Christie’s New York also staged a dedicated sale in October 2023, François-Xavier Lalanne, Sculpteur | Collection Dorothée Lalanne, featuring works from the artist’s daughter and curated by French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus, closing with white gloves and a $59 million total, with at least fourteen lots surpassing six figures.
This October, Di Donna Gallery will present a museum-quality exhibition featuring a groundbreaking dialogue between Magritte’s surreal vision and the whimsical world of the Lalanne couple. The show will highlight their shared surrealist sensibilities and historical connection through gallerist Alexander Iolas in the 1960s. Over fifty works will be on display, including rare pieces from the estates of François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, as well as paintings, works on paper and sculptures by René Magritte. Among the highlights is Magritte’s enigmatic L’ami intime (1958), which fetched $33.66 million at Christie’s London in March. During the last Venice Biennale, Ben Brown presented an extensive exhibition dedicated to the Lalannes, “Planète Lalanne,” featuring more than 150 works by the celebrated French duo.
The François-Xavier Lalanne, Sculpteur | Collection Dorothée Lalanne sale generated nearly $59 million at Christie’s New York in October 2024. Brian W. Ferry, all rights reserved
Phillips’ design specialist Kimberly Sørensen says the market is still strong, but more names are gaining momentum: their June Design auction in New York achieved a 91 percent sell-through rate by lot and 96 percent by value—an exceptional result. This followed their April Design sale in London, which reached 94 percent by lot and 97 percent by value. “These figures underscore the strength of the market and the continued appetite for exceptional design and craftsmanship,” Sørensen commented.
He told Observer that he’s seeing particular interest in female designers: Judy Kensley McKie’s Fish bench led Phillips’ June Design sale in New York, achieving $406,400 and setting a new world auction record for the artist. This, after her Leopard couch already led the top lot at Phillips’ London Design sale in April—further proof of her growing international appeal. Other standout female artists performing well in the recent sale included Line Vautrin and Claude Lalanne, whose works were among the session’s top lots. The American architect and designer George Nakashima also remains a beloved figure with a truly international market, according to Sørensen. “His daughter, Mira Nakashima, now the creative director of Nakashima Studio, is a remarkable designer in her own right and her work not only continues her father’s legacy of craftsmanship, but has also successfully introduced it to a new generation.”
Studio ceramics is another area in which Phillips has seen tremendous success. Phillips’ December New York sale, Moved by Beauty: Works by Lucie Rie from an Important Asian Collection, was a White Glove auction, which followed a dedicated London sale featuring Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. “We’re proud to hold the auction records for Rie and Coper and have previously set benchmarks for Lucie Rie and Doyle Lane,” he said.
Judy Kensley McKie’s Leopard Couch (1983) sold at Phillips’ April Design Sale for £177,800 ($237,736), while her Fish bench set a new record, achieving $406,400. Courtesy of Phillips
Sørensen confirms that design today attracts a broader and more diverse audience than ever. Even looking at their numbers, so far in 2025, 20 percent of Phillips’ design bidders were new to the auction house, which speaks to the category’s growing appeal. The Phillips specialist also points out that they’re seeing an encouraging rise in interest from younger collectors; Millennials and Gen Z now make up 20 percent of the Design bidders. “Many of them are drawn to the sustainability of the secondary market, where Design objects are not only beautiful but also environmentally conscious choices,” he explained. “Social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have played a big role in this shift, making it easier than ever for collectors to discover and connect with designers across periods and geographies.”
Looking ahead to the final few months of 2025, Sørensen and his team are optimistic. “The momentum we’ve seen so far suggests sustained interest, especially as more seasoned and new collectors recognize the value and artistry within the category.”
Despite the swoon in the broader art market, design has continued to hit new highs with world record prices in all of Christie’s top markets, according to Alex Hemingway, Christie’s global head of design. Asked about the most sought-after names, he pointed to Lalanne, Giacometti, Tiffany and Royère, adding that today’s buyers are especially drawn to masterpiece-level works with strong provenance and compelling narratives.
George Nakashima’s Three-door room divider sold at Phillips for $209,550. Courtesy of Phillips
This June, Christie’s Design auction and the single-owner American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins sale brought in a combined total of $23.6 million. Leading the auction was The Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which achieved $4,285,000, soaring past its $2-3 million estimate and becoming the second-highest price ever realized for a window from Tiffany’s studio. Nonetheless, the world record remains The Danner Memorial Window, which sold for $12.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Modern Art evening sale last November. Before this, the studio’s record was $3.4 million for a Pond Lily lamp sold by Christie’s in 2018.
The Goddard Memorial Window, part of the American Avant-Garde sale, brought in $8.1 million, with 81 percent of lots selling at or above their high estimates. Other top-performing lots included two rare Oiseaux sculptures by Alberto Giacometti (sold for $2,954,000 and $2,833,000, respectively) and a pair of rare ‘Pyramides’ andirons (sold for $378,000). Jean-Michel Frank’s Aragon low table sold for $819,000, and his ceiling light brought in $277,200—more than five times its low estimate.
Lalanne led the $15.4 million Design sale. Claude Lalanne’s unique Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux chandelier (2000) fetched $1,865,000, while her L’Enlèvement d’Europe (1990) sold for $1,134,000. Works by François-Xavier Lalanne also performed strongly, with Le Métaphore (Canard-Bateau) (ca. 2002) soaring to $667,800—five times its high estimate—and Rhinocéros Bleu (1981) achieving $327,600, well above its low estimate of $70,000. Animal-inspired design by other design masters drew significant interest as well, with Jean Royère’s Éléphanteau armchairs realizing $743,400. Notably, demand surged for Alberto and Diego Giacometti’s sculptural and lighting designs across Christie’s sales, with aggregate results finishing 147 percent above the combined pre-sale low estimates.
Claude Lalanne’s Unique ‘Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux’ Chandelier (2000) sold for $1,865,000. Christie’s
Vintage design has become a market of its own over the past decade, confirms Alessandra di Castro, a renowned antiques dealer and the fourth generation of her family’s historic business based in Piazza di Spagna. Over time, she has progressively expanded her offering into broader categories to meet the evolving tastes of a more diverse and constantly shifting collector base. Di Castro pointed out that demand is especially strong when it comes to prominent names, particularly among the many foreign buyers who, encouraged by the flat tax, are purchasing homes in Italy. “They furnish them with Italian taste and aesthetics—those are very interesting clients,” she explained, noting how quickly international buyers absorb the beauty around them and want to live surrounded by it, much like travelers during the era of the Grand Tour.
“Even decorative art and design have become a global market—much more conscious and diverse than in the past,” she said, noting how it’s no longer just architects searching for the perfect piece. Auction houses have opened dedicated departments, and people now come with very specific requests—asking, for instance, whether they have or can source a particular piece by Scarpa.
“Personally, I always buy unique pieces, because I view them through my own lens—as a kind of continuity with the periods I’ve always focused on, particularly the 18th and 19th Centuries,” Di Castro explained. “But with my particular approach to research and my eye for unusual objects, I really look at everything.” Still, the expert dealer admits it’s somewhat disheartening that certain categories—like sublime examples of 18th- and 19th-century cabinetmaking—are now valued far less than when she began her career, even though they remain extraordinary works.
The market for big Italian design names like Carlo Scarpa or Ettore Sottsass remains strong, even in the international market. In December 2023, a rare Pennellate glass vase by Scarpa fetched $107,100 at Wright Auction House—starting from just $24,000 after being acquired for $3.99 in a thrift shop. The Italian architect’s latest record was set just this March for a special-order display cabinet that fetched $489,868 at Piasa. The most recent record for Memphis visionary Ettore Sottsass was set in 2018 at Phillips in London, where his iconic undulating mirror sculpture fetched $430,221. Since then, his furniture and ceramics have consistently crossed into mid- to upper-five-figure territory at European post-war and design sales.
Collectible design for new collectors and expanding geographies
According to Jennifer Olshin, partner and founding director at Friedman Benda, the term “collectible design” feels arbitrary—and even reductive—especially now that the categories of art and design increasingly overlap, both in how works are created and how they circulate. “We tend to avoid using the term because it doesn’t reflect how artists and designers think about their work. For them, it’s about creating something that expresses who they are, that pushes beyond what already exists. They don’t frame it as ‘collectible’—it’s just design, in the same way we don’t say ‘collectible art,’ we say art.”
“Ettore Sottsass 1947-1974” at Friedman Benda in 2023. Courtesy Friedman Benda and Ettore Sottsass | Photo: Daniel Kukla
Friedman Benda is a leading gallery at the intersection of contemporary design, craft and art, representing a highly diverse, intergenerational roster of designers and artists from around the world. Many challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines, materials and cultural narratives, often in cross-disciplinary ways. “Our focus is more on the making, the expression, the stories and commentary—the reason the work exists in the first place,” said Olshin. “Every artist on our roster is doing something we haven’t seen before. Together, they form what almost feels like an encyclopedia of what’s happening in design today.”
The gallery opened in New York in 2007 with an inaugural exhibition of legendary Italian designer Ettore Sottsass—his final show before his death. Since then, Friedman Benda has staged numerous exhibitions exploring the many phases of Sottsass’s complex, imaginative career and continues to represent his estate, along with other historically significant names such as Andrea Branzi, Gaetano Pesce, Wendell Castle and Shiro Kuramata. At the same time, the gallery champions emerging and multidisciplinary voices such as Samuel Ross, Misha Kahn, Ebitenyefa Baralaye and Formafantasma. “We’ve built a program that spans three or four generations of designers, artists and architects, many of whom play off each other in fascinating ways,” Olshin noted. “There have even been moments when a collector comes to us as a Sottsass collector and leaves with a work by Misha Kahn—because they sense a shared spirit between the two.”
Misha Kahn’s “Rien à voir” at Friedman Benda, Paris, in June 2025. Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Misha Kahn | Photo: Fabrice Gousset
Olshin sees the early generation of design pioneers like Sottsass as having paved the way for younger talents. “They fought the initial battles and made things possible. Now, younger designers are building on those hard-won foundations and pushing things forward in their own way. After 18 years, we’re starting to see generational connections—designers introducing us to other designers, former students becoming peers, friends becoming collaborators. These evolving communities are really what we try to make the gallery about.”
Design itself is not new, nor is its market, Olshin pointed out. There have always been iconic collectors—especially in the U.S.—who’ve played a key role in shaping the broader design landscape. Many are deeply embedded in museum and institutional ecosystems, supporting exhibitions, publications and emerging practices. “These great patrons are integral to the cultural infrastructure,” she said. “By helping bring design into public view—through shows, dialogue and visibility—they create ripple effects that expand awareness and accessibility, shaping how wider audiences engage with design.”
What has changed more recently, however, is the breadth and diversity of the collector base. Interest in unique design pieces has expanded significantly since the pandemic, particularly among younger generations and across new geographies. “It’s not necessarily a new market, but we’re seeing a broadening of interest,” Olshin observed. “There are more players, more people engaging with what we’re doing—and a younger generation is coming to design in a really exciting way. They’re not drawing the same distinctions that once existed. For them, design isn’t separate from broader cultural conversations around art—it’s all part of the same dialogue.”
This new generation of collectors is looking to define their environments in more personal, meaningful ways. “It’s not just about aesthetics—it might be a single detail or object—but about surrounding themselves with stories and significance,” Olshin clarified. That shift has also changed who the buyers are. They’re no longer from a single social stratum or traditional collecting circles. Architects and interior designers now find themselves in closer dialogue with increasingly international, hands-on clients. “They’re interpreting the ethos of their clients—their values, daily lives, habits and aspirations. It’s about translating those stories on a deeper, more integrated level.”
Installation View: FormaFantasma’s “Formation” at Friedman Benda, New York. Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Formafantasma. Photo: Izzy Leung
If there’s one common thread among today’s collectors, it’s a desire to live with design—intentionally and fully. “They’re not just acquiring objects to display in a corner; they’re integrating design into their daily lives in meaningful ways,” Olshin said. “It’s about creating environments that reflect how they live, think and feel.”
We’re also seeing notable geographic shifts beyond a handful of major centers. “Even in the U.S., we’re seeing collectors engage with cutting-edge work from regions that didn’t have a strong design presence in the past,” she said. “Whereas before they may have traveled to New York to experience it, now they’re building collections in their own communities.” Museums are starting to reflect this expanded interest as well. Some institutions have long been ahead of the curve, while others are now adapting to meet their audiences’ growing appetite for design. “There are curators who have been championing this for years and others who are now taking cues from their patrons, local communities, or academic circles.”
At the same time, the perspective has become truly global in terms of makers and collectors. “We used to talk about the U.S. market versus international markets, but now the gaze is much broader,” Olshin added. “It’s being driven partly by institutional collecting and design initiatives in places like Australia, the Middle East and Asia.”
“Summer By Design 2025” at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris. Photo: Benjamin Baccarani
“The collector base has indeed grown and diversified over the years,” confirmed Cyrelle Herve, director of Carpenters Workshop in Paris, when Observer asked her to speak on the pulse of the market. “We naturally work with contemporary art collectors. We also engage with enthusiasts of vintage design and even more classical pieces. We particularly enjoy seeing our artists’ works interact with other styles, creating a sense of harmony and aesthetic balance.”
Founded in 2006 in a former carpenter’s workshop in London’s Chelsea, the gallery has since expanded globally, with locations in London (Mayfair), Paris (Le Marais), New York and Los Angeles. With a research-driven curatorial approach that remains attuned to both emerging talent and evolving trends in limited-edition functional sculpture and collectible design, the gallery now boasts a prestigious roster of artists, including Maarten Baas, Wendell Castle, Ingrid Donat, Studio Drift, Rick Owens and Antonio de Cotiis, among others.
Since the gallery’s founding, the design-art segment has undergone a remarkable transformation, Hervé reflects. “Just 15 to 20 years ago, it was still considered a niche market. Today, it holds a prominent place on the international art scene, and its market has evolved rapidly.” A visit to Design Miami or Art Basel’s Paris fair makes this shift palpable: the growing hybridization between art and design has fueled fluid collaborations across disciplines, resulting in exclusive, editioned works that blur the line between functional object and collectible sculpture.
According to Hervé, there’s a growing appetite for works that merge craftsmanship with a strong conceptual or material narrative. “Limited-edition design has moved from a niche interest to a core category in contemporary collections,” she said, noting how the gallery has recently seen a broadening audience—from seasoned contemporary art collectors to new generations drawn to tactile materials, storytelling and the individuality of each piece. “The act of collecting is no longer driven solely by function or decoration, but by a desire for meaningful, enduring works with cultural or sculptural depth. Buyers are more informed now—often researching materials, processes and the artist’s intent before purchasing.” At the same time, Carpenters Workshop is seeing increased demand for commissioned and site-specific pieces. Clients today prioritize sustainability, provenance and innovation as much as aesthetics.
Carpenters Workshop Gallery Paris showcases historic and contemporary works united by aesthetic associations. Photo: Benjamin Baccarani
Regarding trends, Hervé has seen a renewed interest in Brutalism and materiality, alongside a consistent appetite for statement pieces by established names such as Ingrid Donat, Vincenzo De Cotiis and Wendell Castle. Organic design is also on the rise, with artists like Najla El Zein and Wonmin Park gaining traction. At the same time, designers blending technology and form—such as Studio Drift and Random International—are increasingly in demand.
Asked about what she hopes to see next, Hervé is clear: “I would like the next trend to focus on narrative and sociopolitical engagement—pieces that address the environment, identity, gender, memory or decolonization.” She confirmed that the market in Paris—and more broadly in France—has grown significantly in recent years. “We work closely with many interior architects, who play a key role in promoting design art.” While the market remains sensitive to political and geopolitical shifts, which can introduce unpredictability, she notes that the market has been consistently dynamic and expansive in the United States, both on the B2B and B2C fronts. Still, she added, the French approach tends to be more measured and reflective. “More broadly, across all our markets, collecting is often guided by an intellectual process—an interest in the history of forms, the artist’s gesture and the meaning embedded in each piece. Our role goes far beyond simply presenting the work; we’re here to accompany, inform and at times, help educate the collector’s eye.”
The market for design is strongest in Europe. Artnet
According to 2024 data from the Artnet Intelligence Report published in March, sales in the decorative-art category—which in their analysis includes both design objects and furniture but also jewelry, watches and other collectibles—dropped nearly 42 percent year on year, netting $3.3 billion, the lowest total in a decade. In terms of geographical distribution, the market for the category at auction is much stronger in Europe ($1.3 billion in sales) and Asia ($1 billion), while North America maintains a third position for decorative art, generating just over $898 million.
The rise of fairs dedicated to Design
Meanwhile, new fairs are focusing on meeting the growing demand for collectible design. While Design Miami canceled its Basel edition, it has swiftly cemented its presence in Paris, becoming one of the most highly attended events during Art Basel Paris week. Its Miami Beach flagship returns for its 21st edition this December, curated by Glenn Adamson, and for the first time, Design Miami is also pushing into Asia with a curated exhibition in Seoul, timed to coincide with the city’s art week and tapping into the region’s booming market. Titled “Illuminated: A Spotlight on Korean Design,” the show (which is part of Design Miami’s new In Situ series) will be curated by Hyeyoung Cho, chairperson of the Korea Association of Art & Design, in collaboration with the Seoul Design Foundation. It will feature over 170 works—from furniture to lighting to objets d’art—exploring the convergence of traditional Korean craftsmanship and contemporary innovation.
This September, The Armory Show will debut a new design-focused section, Function, that explores how artists blur the lines between art and design. Beyond the curatorial intent to expand definitions, the initiative is also a strategic play to attract a broader cohort of aesthetically minded collectors. “The more entry points we can offer different types of audiences, the better,” fair director Kyla McMillan told Observer.
That same week, COLLECTIBLE returns to New York for its second edition, expanding its footprint and exhibitor roster after a successful debut at the new WSA 2 building. Long established in Belgium as the only fair devoted exclusively to 21st-century design, COLLECTIBLE’s New York edition could fill a persistent void in the U.S. market for dedicated contemporary design fairs.
The FASHION section at COLLECTIBLE New York in 2024. Photo: Simon Leung
COLLECTIBLE distinguishes itself with a fluid, non-traditional format that prioritizes aesthetic experience over discrete objects with immersive presentations such as Vignette, a section inviting interior designers to stage fully realized environments, creating compelling conversations between contemporary and vintage works. “Vignette will explore the conversation between collectible and interior design,” said interior designer Michael Hila, who curates the section, in a statement. “Each Vignette becomes a curated mise-en-scène—a sort of ‘store window’—where contemporary works are paired with vintage or antique pieces to express a personal design ethos. While the spaces might be small, the ideas will be boundless.” Combining curatorial rigor with a spirit of experimentation, COLLECTIBLE also keeps an eye on the future of design through New Gaarde, a platform dedicated to pioneering emerging studios founded within the past three years.
“What was once a critically engaged field has in recent years gained momentum,” Liv Vaisberg, who founded the fair with Clélie Debehault in 2018, told Observer. “We have seen a marked acceleration: more galleries dedicated to contemporary collectible design, a growing base of committed collectors, increasing institutional interest and deeper media coverage. While the market remains selective in scale, its cultural relevance has expanded significantly—shifting from the margins to a more prominent, discerning place within the broader design landscape.”
COLLECTIBLE recently announced its first-ever Hong Kong edition—the fair is venturing into the Asian market with an event scheduled for December and supported by the Hong Kong Government’s CCIDA. Curated by co-founders Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, with scenography by Ann Chan (Hero Design), the show will be part of Design Factory, a new international platform presented by Maison&Objet in Hong Kong.
Luxury-branded design holds the furniture market
It’s important to note that the data and analysis above mainly refer to the art and collectible side of the design market, which consists of exclusive collaborations, special editions and artist collaborations that distinguish it from the broader design and furniture industry. However, even when considering the industry as a whole, the global furniture market showed consistent growth in 2024. According to Future Business Insights, it was valued at $568.6 billion and is projected to reach $878.14 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.65 percent. Asia Pacific led the market in 2024 with a commanding 48.68 percent share, underscoring the region’s manufacturing dominance and rising consumer demand. In the United States, the market is expected to reach $130.24 billion by 2032, driven by strong housing sales and growing demand for innovative, design-forward furniture.
The luxury segment remains a leader. According to Technavio, the Global Luxury Furniture Market is expected to grow by $9.54 billion from 2024 to 2028, driven by the increase in the number of luxury furniture showrooms and a demand for more eco-friendly, high-quality craftsmanship.
The market is holding up across different geographies, according to Marcello Lucchetta, a vice president of sales at Luxury Living Group. “It was certainly not the best year, but it has remained stable thanks to a specific and important factor: the world of branded real estate developments,” he said, referring to branded hotels, such as Bentley Residences, Dolce & Gabbana Residences and the Fendi Condo Residences.
At this year’s Milan Design Week, Dolce & Gabbana unveiled the new Verde Maiolica homeware line, its first-ever collection of bed linens, new Gotham furniture and its latest outdoor collection, Saint Jean, created in collaboration with Luxury Living Group. Dolce & Gabbana
And that segment is especially relevant in certain regions, Lucchetta adds, noting the growing presence of so-called “soft luxury” brands—those that aren’t overly loud—doing exceptionally well, like Fendi, automotive names like Bentley and Bugatti and fashion brands like Armani, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, which continues to show strong interest.
According to Lucchetta, the number of residential and hospitality developments tied to a brand and/or featuring branded interiors is growing, particularly in North America, extending beyond Miami. “Previously, most of the activity was centered in Miami, which now feels somewhat saturated, but the market is expanding across the U.S. and North America more broadly,” he said. “Compared to last year, the numbers are roughly the same, but there’s more uncertainty now, mainly due to tariffs and what could be described as trade wars or customs duty conflicts.” As for retail, it’s a different story—the market is weak for other products. “I think that’s a trend we’re seeing across various sectors, not just luxury.”
Keith Haring, Untitled (Breakdancers and Barking Dog), 1985. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
As the November marquee auction season approaches and the major auction houses start to build momentum by revealing their top lots, the search for who has consigned what and why begins. Provenance, as we know, can play a big part in establishing and validating an artwork’s value, whether by sparking renewed interest, providing reassurance to buyers or adding art historical context. Sotheby’s, for its part, just announced that a group of thirty-one rare Keith Haring subway drawings will star in the Contemporary Day Sale on November 21 with a combined estimate of between $6.3 and $9 million. This is a very exciting moment for Haring’s collectors as none of these works have ever been offered at auction before, and it’s very difficult to find the originals in such well-preserved condition.
Haring came from a family of modest means in Pennsylvania. His father was an amateur cartoonist who, from his early years, encouraged Keith to invent his own characters. Haring’s talent for drawing led to his receiving a scholarship to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he studied semiotics, but it was his contact with the copious street art that was everywhere in 1980s New York that inspired him most.
Haring started drawing in the subway just as a hobby while en route to work: noticing that the MTA covered unpaid advertisements with black matte paper, he began scrawling his inventive visual language on them in white chalk. In short order, his unique and highly recognizable style attracted his first fans. Nonetheless, Haring continued his drawings in front of the crowds and the NYPD, who ticketed and even arrested him for vandalism over the next five years. Describing them in an essay published for Art in Transit: Subway Drawings, published in 1984, he said felt that his work was “more of a responsibility than a hobby,” a way to leave a critical trace as an individual presence in a cannibalizing metropolis dominated by corporate interests and unstoppable real estate speculation and gentrification. Even when Haring’s career skyrocketed and he established himself as a leading figure in the downtown art scene, he said the subway was still his “favorite place to draw.”
During his subway project, he appropriated thousands of black panels for energetic mark-making to build an inventory of iconic images, such as his nuclear dogs, angels, flying saucers, babies, smiley faces, etc.—the motifs mostly engineered at his seminal creative haunt, Club 57. “I think the origin of the subway drawings was part of how they came about in a sense, where it was part of Keith’s DNA,” Gil Vazquez, executive director of the Keith Haring Foundation, said in a statement. “There’s a significant component of generosity. When I think of the subway drawings, I think of them as one of Keith’s first acts of activism.”
Given the nature of urban guerrilla art, most of the subway drawings have been lost or destroyed, making the ones coming to auction a true rarity for fans and institutions looking to add to their collections. Because of their importance and rarity, the works have also been included in prominent exhibitions, including the Brooklyn Museum’s 2012 critically acclaimed exhibition of Haring’s career titled “Keith Haring: 1978-1982,” which marked the last occasion the group exhibited together. Most of the works coming to auction have a long exhibition history, like Untitled (Still Alive in ’85), which is one of the final subway drawings and has been featured in many prominent exhibitions at MoMA, the Reading Public Museum in Pennsylvania, Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville in Paris, de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Rotterdam.
Behind their extraordinary survival is a passionate art collector, Larry Warsh, who has taken on stewardship of these thirty-one works for nearly 40 years, building the most exceptional and extensive assemblage of Haring’s subway drawings in private hands. Observer spoke with Wash to understand how those gems came into his collection, the importance of preserving these drawings and, more generally, what’s in his art collection today.
“I’ve been collecting Keith Haring since the mid-’80s, and collecting all kinds of artwork all along, drawings, subway drawings, even a car, anything to do with Keith that was very compulsive at the time,” Warsh told Observer. Arguably, the collector was one of the first supporters of Keith Haring, despite the fact that he doesn’t see himself as a patron in traditional terms. “I was a patron for him in supporting his creative self, what he stood for and what he did. I was not a traditional patron; I just gave money or attended all the gallery functions. I was more pure in the sense of seeing his creativity and what he was doing then. It was a different time.”
Warsh is also an art historian, having published three books about Keith Haring. When asked how he spotted Haring’s talent so early and realized that his work would have historical relevance, he demures. “First of all, it was him, as a creative being and a person. Wherever he drew as artwork, his energy and translation of symbols and signs were unique, and most people would feel comfortable looking at his art. It was art for everyone. He made art for everybody, and he was a generous person and cared about people; he cared about causes; he cared about kids.”
Those subway drawings were part of his tridimensional works—Warsh is currently writing a book on this—and link him to the notion of the Duchampian ready-made, bringing it to a more democratic and public level by appropriating elements in urban spaces. “He was a student of the immediate art act in drawing and painting on objects like Duchamp, so these are considered like found objects.”
While he sometimes tried to get them directly from the subway, Warsh admitted that peeling them out proved difficult, so he just started to find and buy them compulsively. “I basically hunted them down and tried to accumulate them as a body of work,” he said. “It was not about commerciality. It’s about historical importance. My feeling was that these were historically important.” For the same reason, he also started buying Basquiat’s notebooks, being one of the first to acknowledge the historical importance of those texts. Today, he also has the most extensive collection of them. “It’s not the commercial goal that propelled me into collecting. It was the manic, compulsive accumulation personality that I had for many, many years.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Warsh started collecting very early in his life, having been introduced to art by an uncle who was a collector of German art. However, he really got into it when he moved to downtown New York City, immersing himself fully in the art scene and the collective energy that shaped an entire community, creating the fertile ground for this entire moment of art history to happen. “I was interested in the energy of the time,” Warsh explained. “My good friend Renee Ricard used to visit me at all night hours with all kinds of things. So I learned with my eyes, and I felt with my emotions, and I had to look into the future and feel what I was collecting in the present would have value. Not just commercial value, but historical value.”
Keith Haring, Untitled (Boombox Head); est. $400,000-600,000. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
When asked why he wanted to part with them, Warsh said that he wanted to let them circulate and be seen again by giving the opportunity of ownership to another collector or, even better, an institution that will show them. “I think I did my job to accumulate them as the body of works,” he said. “They were shown in museums; we did a book, with one version in Mandarin. I don’t want to own much art anymore in the same way I wanted to. I’m thrilled with what I did, but at this point, it’s time for institutions to have a chance to add these drawings to their collections because they are the most important works by this artist, I believe.”
To further promote the value of this group of works, Sotheby’s is hosting an immersive exhibition of the subway drawings that will help visitors envision these works where they were initially conceived by turning the galleries into a vintage subway station with turnstiles, benches and archival footage. Warsh is excited to see what the auction house and exhibition partner Samsung (SSNLF) are cooking up, as it aligns with his desire to share Haring’s art with as many people as possible, particularly in the city. “I think New Yorkers will want to come and see this because everybody has always heard about them or seen pictures, but very few have had the chance to see these drawings in person,” he said. “Seeing them in person, seeing how fragile they are and how sensitive they are, will leave everyone amazed.” Wash concluded that he hopes the exhibition will further enhance the value of Keith Haring’s work and revive interest in it by showing its relevance as an essential part of a pivotal moment in New York’s cultural history.
Sotheby’s has auctioned off the skeleton of a stegosaurus named Apex, billed as “the finest for Stegosaurus to ever come to market,” for almost $45 million, a record.
The sale price far exceeds the estimate of $4 million to $6 million that Sotheby’s had assigned to the lot. Described as a mounted Stegosaurus skeleton, the exact sale price was $44.6 million, surpassing earlier sales records for dinosaur fossils.
Sotheby’s, which said the auction closed Wednesday morning, did not immediately disclose the buyer’s identity.
The iconic skeleton is approximately 161 million years old, according to Sotheby’s, and measures 11 feet tall by nearly 27 feet long from nose to tail. According to the auction house’s listing, Apex “is mounted in an aggressive attack pose on a custom steel armature.”
“Apex” sold for $45 million at a Sotheby’s auction Wednesday.
Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images
It was excavated on private land in Moffat County, Colorado, near the town of Dinosaur, between 2022 and 2023.
The fossil of one of the world’s most recognizable dinosaurs is nearly completely intact, according to Sotheby’s. The fossil also shows signs of arthritis, suggesting that Apex lived a long life.
Apex is not the first dinosaur to sell at auction. In 1997, a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil sold for $8.4 million and in 2020, another T. rex skeleton fetched $32 million. Two years later, in 2022, Sothebys sold a Gorgosaurus skeleton for over $6 million.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
Expected to sell for up to $600,000 at auction next month, it is the highest presale value ever placed on a Harry Potter-related item, according to auction house Sotheby’s.
The watercolor cover art was created by author and illustrator Thomas Taylor.
The image features young wizard Harry Potter – with his unmistakable dark, brown hair, round glasses and lightning bolt scar – ready to board the Hogwarts Express train for his first trip to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Taylor’s cover was used for several translated versions of the book, the auction house said. However, it was not used for the US edition of the book, which was released with the title “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
When the illustration was first up for auction at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, it sold for around four times its estimated sale price, for a record £85,750 (about $106,000), according to a Sotheby’s press release Thursday.
In June, “more than 20 years later, the original illustration returns to auction poised to not only far exceed the value it previously sold, but also to potentially set a new auction record for any Harry Potter related item,” the auction house said in the release.
The record for an item related to the book series is currently held by an unsigned first edition of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” which sold for $421,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, in 2021, according to Sotheby’s.
Taylor, just 23 years old at the time, created the original cover image in two days, according to Sotheby’s.
At the time of the book’s publication, Taylor was working in a bookshop, where his colleagues would inform customers that their local bookseller was the illustrator of the high selling novel, according to Sotheby’s.
The illustration will be offered on June 26 at Sotheby’s in New York along with other works of English an American Literature.
The auction house will then offer one of J.K. Rowling’s handwritten original manuscripts for her 2007 book “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” on July 10.
The manuscript is one of six handwritten by the British author that was originally intended as gifts for people closely involved with the publication of “Harry Potter,” according to the release.
Both the illustration and the manuscript will be exhibited at Sotheby’s in New York between June 21 to 25.
Monumental gilt-bronze figures of Panjarnata Mahakala and Kapaladhara Hevajra. Courtesy Sotheby’s
Two of the largest bronze figures created during the early Ming dynasty will soon be offered up by Sotheby’s during spring’s Asia Week New York.
Depicting guardian deity Panjarnata Mahakala and meditational deity Hevajra, the works will headline the auction house’s upcoming Asian art sales in the two-lot sale Wrathful Deities: Masterworks from the Bodhimanda Foundation. Both figures were likely commissioned for Chinese shrines and are an exception example of the influence of Vajrayana Buddhism on emperors of the early Ming dynasty.
“We are honored to offer these superlative gilt-bronze masterpieces to commence our annual March Asian Art auction series,” said Julian King, an international specialist and head of sale in Himalayan Art for Sotheby’s New York, in a statement. “Both are of superb quality and endowed with truly adamantine power.”
The figure of Hevajra measures more than two feet tall and has an estimate of between $3 million to $5 million. Meanwhile, the figure of Panjarnata Mahakala is several inches taller and is by far the largest early Ming dynasty bronze in private hands. It is expected to sell for between $4 million and $6 million.
The sale of the imperial gilt-bronze figures will benefit the Bodhimanda Foundation
The early 15th-century works were in a private European collection before they were gifted in 2011 to the Bodhimanda Foundation, an organization focused on spreading knowledge about the culture of esoteric Buddhism through research, publications, lectures and the display of artwork. The figures are the largest and most important Chinese works of art in the nonprofit’s Buddhist art collection.
All proceeds from the Sotheby’s sale will benefit the Bodhimanda Foundation’s goal to place its collection in a permanent museum display. “We are privileged to have been selected by the Bodhimanda Foundation to find a new home for these two masterpieces, thereby raising funds to house their collection in a new home,” said King.
The two bronze figures were most recently displayed together between 2011 and 2020 at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The figure of Hevajra was also exhibited in 2012 at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
Ahead of the live sale on March 19, the statuettes will be on view between February 5 through 7 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong before being included in a public exhibition at Sotheby’s New York that will open on March 14. More highlights from the auction house’s upcoming March Asian Art sales will be announced closer to the date.
One princess’s trash is another auction-goer’s $1.143 million treasure, as it turns out.
The iconic “Black Sheep” sweater worn by the late Princess Diana sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York Thursday for an eye-popping sum, breaking the record for the highest price fetched for an item worn by Diana. Previously, the record was $604,800 for an aubergine evening gown Diana wore, designed by Victor Edelstein. The sweater was originally estimated to sell for somewhere between $50,000 and $80,000.
The sweater depicts a flock of white sheep set off against a red background, with one black sheep standing out among them. Diana wore the sweater out and about with jeans in 1981, just a month before she married now-King Charles III. She was just 19 years old, and the sweater made an instant impression.
The sweater, designed by Warm and Wonderful and available in reproduction today due to its lasting popularity, is one of at least two that Diana owned—and was the original. The designers of Warm and Wonderful, Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne, recalled getting a letter from Buckingham Palace shortly after Diana made headlines in the attention-grabbing sweater. She’d damaged it, and was hoping to replace or repair the jumper. The company sent a new sweater to her, and the old one was tucked away and forgotten about—until recently.
“I was in the attic in February searching for a pattern, and I just happen to notice this old wine box in a corner—and there was a red sheep jumper wrapped in a cotton bedspread,” Osborne told People. “It was well preserved, and I had a kind of Groundhog Day moment and thought, ‘Could this be the one?’ I looked at the cuff which had obviously been sewn back on, and I called Sal and said, ‘I think I’ve found the actual real Diana jumper!’”
“We had just sort of forgotten about it,” Muir said.
After looking at photos of Diana in the original, Osborne said, “we both felt certain that it was the actual one. We just knew because every jumper is different, so it was easy to see. So we called Sotheby’s!”
Diana wore the design again, her replacement version, in 1983.
Last week, three of Princess Diana’s gowns sold at auction for a total of $1.62 million.
Another high ticket item – handwritten lyrics for the Queen hit “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which the frontman autographed – sold for $1.7 million U.S. dollars. The pages contain a bit of little known history. The song was originally titled “Mongolian Rhapsody” but was altered to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the draft shows.
A Yamaha grand piano on which Freddie Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including “Bohemian Rhapsody. The exhibition “Freddie Mercury – A World Of His Own” in London provides insights into the private life and musical career of the Queen frontman.
Philip Dethlefs/picture alliance via Getty Images
While items like a crown and cloak set (which went for $791,784 U.S. dollars), a few guitars, and several catsuits have already sold, there are some pieces still being bid on, including diaries and notebooks with handwritten lyrics and a pair Mercury’s signature Adidas high top sneakers.
Mercury’s MTV Video Music Award, which Queen won in 1992 for best video from a film, was also still being bid on Thursday. The award was given for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was featured in “Wayne’s World.”
The manuscripts of working lyrics for (L-R) ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Somebody to Love’, and ‘We Are The Champions’, autographed by British singer-songwriter Freddie Mercury, are displayed during the media preview for “Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own: The Evening Sale” at Sotheby’s in New York City on June 1, 2023.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
The Sotheby’s multi-day auction is broken into categories: The “On Stage,” featuring costumes, instruments, lyrics and other items pertaining to performances; “At Home,” with items from Mercury’s Garden Lodge; “In Love With Japan,” featuring the Japanese art Mercury collected; and “Crazy Little Things,” with “oddments, curios and beloved objects from Freddie’s home.”
Before the auction items were sold, the were on display in New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and London.
Mercury sang with Queen for about two decades and died in 1991 from complications from HIV. During their decades together, Queen wrote countless hits and was nominated for four Grammys.
He was the king of Queen and his crown could be yours — for the right price. Freddie Mercury‘s extensive collection of costumes, fine art, and even handwritten working lyrics for “We Are the Champions” and “Killer Queen” will be auctioned in September.
Queen’s frontman had said he wanted to live a Victorian life surrounded by “exquisite clutter,” and he left it all to his close friend, Mary Austin, when he died, at 45, of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1991.
Austin, who has kept most of it the way Mercury left it in his home in the upscale Kensington neighborhood of London, said she had reached the “difficult decision” that it was time to sell it all, Sotheby’s said.
Artwork includes prints or works on paper by Picasso and Matisse. “Type of Beauty,” a painting by 19th-century French artist James Tissot of his Irish muse and lover Kathleen Newton, is estimated to sell for 400,000 to 600,000 pounds ($500,000-750,000) — the highest of any item listed in press materials.
Lyrics for the band’s show-closing anthemic number “We are the Champions” that Mercury wrote on nine pages, including stationery from British Midland Airways, are estimated to fetch 200,000 to 300,000 pounds ($250,000-375,000).
Mercury donned the rhinestone-studded crown and cloaked his bare back in the red fake fur cloak after singing “Champions” at Knebworth House north of London during Queen’s final concert together in 1986. He marched triumphantly back onto stage and raised the crown with his right hand as the crowd began singing along to “God Save the Queen” piped out through the sound system.
The crown is said to be based on St. Edward’s Crown, which will be featured in King Charles III’s coronation next month. Unlike the authentic centerpiece of Britain’s Crown Jewels, the headpiece worn by Mercury is only estimated to sell for 60,000 to 80,000 pounds ($75,000-100,000).
A Mercury fan with a smaller budget might consider his silver mustache comb from Tiffany & Co. It’s expected to set you back 400 to 600 pounds ($500-750).
Some of the roughly 1,500 items going up for sale will be exhibited in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong during a tour in June.
They will be auctioned over three days in September. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
A diamond cross pendant once worn by Princess Diana now belongs to Kim Kardashian, after the reality star and business mogul outbid others at a Sotheby’s auction. The amethyst pendant was expected to go for $80,000 GBP to $120,000 GBP. Kardashian bought it for $163,800 GBP – or $202,492.18 U.S. dollars.
The cross was formerly part of the collection of the late Naim Attallah, CBE, a Palestinian-British businessman and writer. The pendant, which dates back to 1920, was made by jewelry manufacturer Garrard. It was auctioned off alongside other valuables from Attallah’s Mayfair, London apartment, according to Sotheby’s.
Garrard lent Princess Diana the pendant in 1987. She wore it with a purple and black velvet dress to a fundraiser held by Garrad for Birthright, a charity that aims to protect human rights during pregnancy and childbirth, according to Sotheby’s.
The cross was formerly part of the collection of the late Naim Attallah, CBE. It was made by jewelry manufacturer, Garrard, in 1920 and worn by Princess Diana in 1987.
Sotheby’s
The Princess of Wales’ engagement ring – a sapphire and diamond design – was also made by Garrard.
Attallah, who died in 2021, was group chief executive of Asprey & Garrard, which was later renamed Garrard & Co. The company served as the Royal Family’s Crown Jewlers, meaning it maintained the family’s prized jewels, until 2007.
Attallah’s son, Ramsay Attallah, said Diana wore the amethyst pendant several times. Attallah, who was good friends with Diana, acquired the cross when she died in 1997. It hasn’t been worn since.
Diana, Princess Of Wales, Arriving At A Charity Gala Evening On Behalf Of Birthright At Garrard. The Princess Is Wearing A Purple Evening Dress With A Gold And Amethyst Crucifix Suspended On A Pearl Rope.
Getty Images
Kardashian reportedly outbid four other people in a bidding war that lasted five minutes, according to BBC News. Kardashian, who owns beauty and fashion brands, is known for wearing lavish jewelry – and has the net worth to back the expensive passion. She is worth an estimated $1.8 billion, according to Forbes.
In 2011, she bought three jade diamond bracelets that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. The late star’s jewelry collection was sold at a Christie’s auction. The bangles, created by Lorraine Schwartz, were estimated to sell for $8,000 and Kardashian paid $64,900. The entire collection raked in $137 million at auction.
Schwartz is not only a close friend of Kardashian, but was also friends with Taylor.
