Egon Schiele’s ‘Vorstadt’ sells for $40 million

Egon Schiele
Häuser mit bunter Wäsche, “Vorstadt“ II, 1914
100.5 x 120.5 cm,
£24,681,250 / $40,099,627 / €27,635,665

Egon Schiele’s ‘Vorstadt’ sells for $40 million Egon Schiele’s 1914 cityscape ‘Häuser mit bunter Wäsche (Vorstadt II) / Houses with Laundry (Suburb II)’ has been sold for £24,7 / $40 million at Sotheby’s London, on 22 June 2011, setting a new world auction record for the artist.]]>

June 23rd 2011, source: Sotheby’s / theartwolf

The Schiele was the star of Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, which totalled £96,968,000 / $157,543,910 / €108,575,344. The very strong cityscape was offered for sale for the first time, and the seller was no other than the Leopold Museum in Vienna. Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department, said: “We were thrilled with the record price achieved for Egon Schiele’s work and were honoured to bring this museum-quality work to auction“.

The sale broke the previous auction record for a work by Egon Schiele. The previous auction record had been achieved in 2006, when the landscape “Houses With Mountains” was sold for $22,4 million at Christie’s New York.

Other notable prices
Alberto Giacometti’s “Trois hommes qui marchent II”, achieved the top selling price for sculpture this week, and was sold for £10,6 million / $17,3 million. A late and quite erotic work by Pablo Picasso, “Couple, le baiser” of 1969 sold for £6,5 million /$10,6 million. Toulouse-Lautrec’s “La Liseuse”, which was offered for sale for the first time in 70 years, realized £5,6 million / $9,2 million.

Related content

Schiele’s ‘Portrait of Wally’ returns to the Leopold Museum, Vienna (July 2010)
Egon Schiele’s ‘women’ at Richard Nagy London (exhibition, 2011)