Results: Sotheby's Paris - ImpMod and Contemporary Sales

Nicholas de Stael, sold for $3.56 million

Sotheby's Paris just completed its sales for Impressionist and Modern, and Contemporary art. The sales broke down as follows, Impressionist and Modern totaling $23.3 million, Contemporary Art Evening Sale $27.7 million and Contemporary Art Day Sale at $8 million. The total of the three sales was an impressive $59 million. The combined sales are the highest ever for Sotehby's in Paris.

The ImpMod sale had a pre sale estimate of $18-$26 million and sold 66.3% of the offered lots, the contemporary sales had a combined pre sale estimate of $17 to $24 million and sold an impressive 85.6% of the lots and 61% achieved sums in excess of their pre-sale high estimate. 11 works sold for over $1.4 million, 8 of which topped $2 million.

Sotheyb's reported on the Paris ImpMod sales

Today’s sale of Impressionist & Modern Art, following on from Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction, concluded two days of spectacular sales in Paris, whose combined total of €41 million ($59 million) was the highest ever achieved in Paris for a series of sales. The auction of Impressionist & Modern Art yielded one of the highest totals in the field in Paris to date, exceeding pre-sale estimates with €16.1m ($23.3m).

In the words of Thomas Bompard, Director of the Impressionist & Modern Art Department at Sotheby’s Paris: ‘We are very pleased with these results, which carry on where our memorable sales of 2010 left off, and consolidate the enviable position Paris now occupies on the international market for Impressionist and Modern Art. The name-count at the auction spoke for itself: Miró, Giacometti, Picasso, Magritte, Gris...!’

Joan Miró topped the bill with five lots. All found takers, led by a superb 1942 pastel, Women & Bird Before the Sun, which obtained the sale’s top price of €2,304,750 ($3,328,981). The pastel unites the quintessence of Miró’s vocabulary to lend each pictorial element hypnotic graphic force, underscored by an irresistible colour scheme and an enchantingly poetic mood.

The second best price, €1,520,750 ($2,196,571), went to an Alberto Giacometti bronze. This magnificent interpretation of Alberto’s younger brother Diego portrayed from the waist up, Homme à Mi-Corps (Diego Assis), was sculpted in 1965 and cast in 1982 (estimate: €800,000-1,200,000).

One of the first lots in the auction was an oil-on-canvas by René Magritte, La Terre de Feu (1947), which cleared its €900,000 high estimate on €960,750 ($1,387,707).

The impressive €1,352,750 ($1,953,912) obtained for his Broc et Verre (1959) confirms Pablo Picasso’s unabated popularity. This austere, meditative work, produced in the majestic building owned by the Marquis de Vauvenargues, is strongly marked by memories of Picasso’s native Spain.

---