A record-breaking Magritte shines at Sotheby's
Rene Magritte - LEmpire des lumieres - 1961Gino Severini - Etude pour L Autobus - 1913
The modern and contemporary art auction at Sotheby's London on 2 March 2022 was led by René Magritte's "L'Empire des Lumières", which fetched the second highest price ever paid for a painting at auction in Europe.
Images: René Magritte, "L'Empire des Lumières" (1961). Oil on canvas, 114 x 146 cm ·· Gino Severini, "Étude pour 'L'Autobus" (1913). Oil on canvas, 35.4 x 27 cm.
The first part of the auction, "The Now Evening Auction", began in much the same way as Christie's Hong Kong auction the previous day, with a number of works by young artists (Rachel Jones, Jadé Fadojutimi, Shara Hughes, Hilary Pecis) selling for prices well above their pre-sale estimate. Special mention goes to Flora Yukhnovich, who was already one of last year's big surprises and whose "Warm, Wet 'N' Wild" sold for £2.7 million, 13 times its most optimistic presale estimate. The work with the highest pre-sale estimate, Banksy's "Vandalised Oil (Choppers)", sold for £4.4 million, a good result that another similar Banksy, "Happy choppers", failed to achieve the previous day.
After this first session, it was time for the highlight of the day, the auction of modern and contemporary art, led by one of the versions of "L'Empire des Lumières", perhaps René Magritte's greatest work, which had an estimated pre-sale price of more than $60 million, and by a somewhat uneven group of paintings by Claude Monet. And this uneven group achieved uneven results. While a water lilies canvas -certainly not one of the most brilliant in the series- sold for £23.2 million, exceeding its most optimistic pre-sale estimate, "Massif de chrysanthèmes" fell short of expectations by fetching £8.3 million. Worse luck went to "Glaçons, environs de Bennecourt", a pale winter scene that failed to find a buyer.
But let's move on to the star of the day. At around 18:15 local time, the bidding began for "L'Empire des Lumières", which Sotheby's had defined as "one of the most desirable works of modern art in private hands", a somewhat exaggerated statement, although I suppose it depends on where you set the bar. Measuring 114 x 146 cm, it is one of the largest versions of the work painted by Magritte, which explains its value, especially when compared to the first version of the work (measuring just 48.6 × 58.7 cm) that was auctioned in November 2017 for $20.6 million, although it could be argued that the historical significance of this first version is greater than that of the work auctioned today. In any case, after an exciting bidding battle, the work was sold for £59.4 million ($79,5 million) to a buyer represented by Alex Branczik, director of modern and contemporary art at Christie's Asia. This sale is, of course, a new record for a work by Magritte, and the second highest price ever paid for a painting at auction in Europe.
One of lime and one of sand for David Hockney: his recent "Garrowby Hill" fetched £14.1 million, comfortably above his most optimistic presale estimate, but "Painted Landscape (Or Red and Blue Landscape)" (1965) failed to find a buyer. As almost always, Vincent van Gogh delivered, and his small "A Pair of Lovers (Eglogue en Provence)" sold for £10 million, his most optimistic presale estimate. The big bargain of the auction was "Étude pour 'L'Autobus", a small canvas (35.4 x 27 cm) painted in 1913 by Gino Severini, which fetched £693,000. Works from the heyday of Futurism rarely appear at auction, and this painting was a great opportunity for a serious collector of modern art to acquire a modest but vibrant and attractive work by one of the movement's great representatives.

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