Monet and Kandinsky lead auctions in London, June 2013

Claude Monet
Le Palais Contarini, 1908
Estimate: £15-20 million
Sold for £19,682,500/ $30,503,938/ €22,998,940)
at Sotheby’s

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)
Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909
Estimate: £12-16 million
Sold for £13,501,875/ $21,157,438 /€15,851,201
at Christie’s

Monet, Kandinsky lead auctions in London, June 2013 Claude Monet’s ‘Le Palais Contarini’ fetched £19,7 million ($30,5 million) at Sotheby’s, and Wassily Kandinsky’s ‘Studie zu Improvisation 3’ was sold for £13,5 million ($21,1 million) at Christie’s.]]>

June 19th 2013, source: Christie’s / Sotheby’s

SOTHEBY’S auction: June 19th, 2013

Sotheby’s sale was led by “Le Palais Contarini” (est. £15-20m), a work painted by Claude Monet during a three-month trip to Venice in 1908 – the year of one of the first Venice Biennales. The work was sold for £19,682,500 ($30,503,938 / €22,998,940) “in 3-way standoff”, according to Sotheby’s. Two more works by Monet did well at the auction: the early “Le Pont de Bois” (1872) fetched £6,242,500, and the quite melancholic “L’église de vernon, temps gris” (1894) was auctioned for 4,562,500.

“Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue”, painted by Piet Mondrian in 1927 -and described by the auction house as “a pristine example of the artist’s unique style” and “a quintessential work by the artist”- sold for a remarkable £9,266,500 against a pre-sale estimate of £4.5-£6.5 million).

“La Valse”, a bronze by Camille Claudel, fetched a notable £5,122,500, an auction record for the artist. Salvador Dalí‘s large “La Musique” was sold for £5,010,500. “Studie für Herbstlandschaft mit Booten”, an early masterpiece by Wassily Kandinsky, fetched £6,354,500, well over its high estimate.

CHRISTIE’S auction: June 18th, 2013

The top lot at Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Sale was “Studie zu Improvisation 3”, 1909, by Wassily Kandinsky which sold for £13,501,875/ $21,157,438 /€15,851,201 (estimate: £12-16 million). Christie’s noted that the majority of works from Kandinsky’s ‘Improvisation’ series are in major institutions – including the final version of this work which is in the Centre George Pompidou, Paris.

“Paul Guillaume” (1916) by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) realised £6,781,875/ $10,627,198/ €7,961,921 (estimate: £5-7million). The work is the only one of four portraits that the artist painted of the art dealer – who represented him between 1914 and 1916 – to have remained in private hands. “Femme assise dans un fauteuil”, a late work (painted in December 1960) by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) realised £6,109,875/ $9,574,174/ €7,172,993 (estimate: £4-6 million).

A great success for Christie’s was Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) “Eve après le péché” (conceived in 1880-1881 and executed circa 1900-1915), which realised £2,861,875/ $4,484,558 /€3,359,841 against an estimate of just £500,000-700,000.

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Kandinsky’s ‘Studie für improvisation 8’ at Christie’s (news, April 2012)