Giacometti sells for $104.3 million, auction record for a work of Art

Alberto Giacometti – L’Homme qui marche I

Giacometti sells for $104.3 million, auction record for a work of Art

A great sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, ‘L’homme qui marche’, sold for £65,001,250 / $104,327,006 /€74,185,983 becoming the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction

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February 4, 2010, source: Sotheby’s
One of the most important sculptures by the artist ever to have come to the auction market, this life-size work ranks among the most arresting and iconic of the artist’s bronzes. In addition, no life-time cast of the subject had ever been offered at auction before. The work is now not only the most expensive sculpture ever sold, but also the most expensive work of Art ever sold at auction. Proceeds from the sale will be entirely put towards supporting Commerzbank’s foundations as well as selected museums

At the same auction, Gustav Klimt’s ‘Kirche in Cassone (Landschaft mit Zypressen) (Church in Cassone – Landscape with Cypresses)’, was sold for £26,921,250 / $43,208,606 / €30,725,246. Estimated at £12-18 million, this beautiful, jewellike work was once part of one of the greatest early collections of Klimt’s work: that of the Austro-Hungarian iron magnate and collector Viktor Zuckerkandl (1851-1927) and his wife Paula.

The important still-life ‘Pichet et fruits sur une table’, painted in 1893-94 by Paul Cézanne, fetched £11,801,250 / $18,941,006 /€13,468,777. The auction totalled £146,828,350 / $235,659,502 / €167,575,324, a record for an auction staged in London