The Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale and Property from the Collection of Nelson & Happy Rockefeller Raise $57.2 Million

Following Monday’s Auction Record for René Magritte, The Artist’s L’Incendie Soars to $4.3 Million Sotheby’s Highest Price Achieved in an Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale

Sotheby’s November Sales of Impressionist & Modern Art Reach $368.2 Million *Up 18% Over November 2017*

NEW YORK, 14 November 2018 – Sotheby’s marquee November auctions continued yesterday in New York, with the Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale and Property from the Collection of Nelson and Happy Rockefeller together achieving $57.2 million. Including Monday’s Evening Sale, Sotheby’s November auctions of Impressionist & Modern Art have raised $368.2 million – a 18.1% increase over the same sales in 2017.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale Auction Total: $50.1 MillionScott Niichel, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sales, New York. said “We are thrilled with the strong results of today’s sales, which offered up a broad array of material with something for every taste, allowing both new and experienced collectors the opportunity to acquire terrific works created over the span of more than a century. We saw strong prices for nearly every genre in the category: from Surrealist masters Magritte, Ernst and Miró to classic Impressionist painters Renoir, Monet and Pissarro, and from Fauves Marquet, Derain and Valtat to Modern British sculptors Hepworth, Chadwick and Moore. There was also notable interest for artists that are new to Sotheby’s Day Sales, as evidenced by remarkable results for LeBlanc Stewart and Martinez among many others. We are particularly honored to represent The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with a fine group of paintings, achieving excellent results that will support the Museum’s European Paintings Acquisition Fund.”

René Magritte L’Incendie Executed circa 1948 Estimate $1/1.5 million Sold for $4.3 millionFollowing Monday night’s sale of René Magritte’s masterful Le Principe du plaisir (The Pleasure Principle), which established a new world auction record for the artist when it sold for $26.8 million, Sotheby’s saleroom saw continued enthusiasm for the artist’s work. The top lot of the Day Sale was L’Incendie, a jewel-like example of Magritte’s famed tree-leaf motif, which tripled its high estimate to sell for $4.3 million, the highest price achieved in an Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale. Executed in the aftermath of World War II, L’Incendie is a tour-de-force example of Magritte’s steadfast commitment to figurative Surrealism and his mastery of the gouache medium.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Femme au jardin Painted circa 1890 Estimate $1/1.5 million Sold for $1.4 millionOne of the standout classic Impressionist offerings of the sale, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s alluring late 19th-century work Femme au jardin was sold to benefit The European Paintings Acquisition Fund of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dominated by a range of bright and modulated tones of greens and blues, the palette is testament to Renoir's understanding of the natural variations of light and his dexterity as an Impressionist portraitist.

Alfredo Ramos Martínez La India de los floripondios circa 1932 Estimate $800/1.2 million Sold for $ 1.2 millionOne of the standout offerings of Modern Latin American art in yesterday’s sale was Alfredo Ramos Martínez’s edenic La India de los floripondios circa 1932. This lyrical depiction of a spellbound indigenous woman, surrounded by tropical flora and gazing out at the viewer, is a striking example of the artist’s direct and powerful visual language, as he drew on the geometric conventions of pre-Columbian art alongside modernist sensibilities.

A Modernist Vision: Property from the Collection of Nelson & Happy Rockefeller Auction Total: $7.1 MillionTitled ‘A Modernist Vision’, this exceptional group of objects was in part the result of Nelson Rockefeller’s commission of an original interior from designer Jean-Michel Frank, who, in close collaboration with his patron, filled Nelson’s distinguished 810 5th Avenue apartment with his unique designs, as well as those of celebrated artist-designers Alberto Giacometti and Christian Bérard.

The sale was led by a suite of gilt au mercure bronze furnishings by Alberto Giacometti, including a pair of regal Consoles that each sold for $735,000 (estimates $700,000/1,000,000 each), a ‘‘Grecque’’ Table Lamp that sold for $471,000 (estimate $150/200,000), and a Pair of Andirons, which soared to $711,000 after a prolonged 5-way bidding battle (estimate $200/300,000). Frank strongly believed that Giacometti’s design shared a remarkable kinship both with antiquity and with the fine art of his contemporaries. The luxurious gilt surfaces of Giacometti’s bronze furniture and lighting fulfilled Nelson’s quest for an opulent yet modern interior.

The auction also saw strong interest for the fine art that had adorned the walls of the Happy’s apartment at 812 5th Avenue. Highlights included a multi-textural collage on sandpaper by Joan Miró, which sold for $615,0000 (estimate $600/800,000); a whimsically Purist oil of female hairdressers by Massimo Campigli that brought $337,500 (estimate $200/300,000); and a watercolor on paper by Paul Klee, which climbed over four times its high estimate of $100,000, achieving $435,000.

Sotheby’s sales of Property from the Collection of Nelson and Happy Rockefeller continue this winter with Happy’s exquisite jewelry highlighting our 4 December Magnificent Jewels auction, as well as a dedicated sale comprising of Silver & Vertu, Americana, Japanese Art, Books & Manuscripts, European and Chinese Works of Art that will highlight our Americana Week auctions in January 2019.