$139.4 million Picasso sale leads Sotheby’s Emily Fisher Landau auction.
Pablo Picasso, Femme à la montre, 1932. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The Takeaway: Several strong results from Sotheby’s Emily Fisher Landau auction on November 8th suggest faint signs of recovery in the market for blue-chip artists’ works.
Pablo Picasso’s Woman With a Watch (1932) sold for $139.4 million, making it the second most expensive work by the artist sold at auction, and the most expensive work to sell at auction in 2023 so far. The white glove evening sale, which brought in a total of $406.4 million, also marked the most valuable sale dedicated to a woman collector in auction history.
A new auction record was also set for Agnes Martin, whose Grey Stone II (1961) went for more $18.7 million, more than double its high estimate of $8 million.
The sale total of $406.4 million is roughly in the middle of the total estimated value for the evening.
The top 5 lots of the sale were as follows:
- Jasper Johns’s Flags (1986) sold for $41 million, setting a record for the artist’s American flag paintings.
- Ed Ruscha’s Securing the Last Letter (Boss) (1964) sold for $39.4 million.
- Cy Twombly’s Untitled (1968) sold for $26.8 million.
- Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1958) sold for $22.2 million.
- Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait (1986) sold for $18.1 million.
In addition to the Agnes Martin work, other auction records set include:
- Mark Tansey’s Triumph Over Mastery II (1987) sold for $11.8 million, following competitive bidding from four individuals.
- Robert Rauschenberg’s Vitamin sold for $3.5m, setting the record for the artist’s works on paper.
