London Saw Few Auction Shakeups as Guarantees Steadied the Market

If the £131 million total achieved at Sotheby’s the previous evening suggested that the art market continues to move forward with remarkable composure—seemingly unfazed by wars, political fractures and a global economy unraveling in slow motion—Christie’s set out to reinforce the point yesterday (March 5) with its three-session marquee evening sale. The proceedings unfolded largely without drama, following what often felt like a carefully prearranged script, ultimately delivering the auction house a combined total of £197,472,600 ($263,823,394). Across the three sales, 21 lots carried third-party guarantees securing their results—a 52 percent year-over-year rise.

The evening actually began at 5:30 p.m. London time with a spectacularly staged unveiling of the new rostrum, redesigned for the auction house’s 260th anniversary by Sir Jony Ive and LoveFrom. But despite the fanfare, the design remained reassuringly traditional, and after this brief flirtation with spectacle, Christie’s global head of private sales Adrien Meyer cut through the theatrics with a simple line: “Time to get to work.”  He announced that four lots were withdrawn (5, 22, 26, 29) before opening the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale, which alone delivered £114,175,900, just shy of the high presale estimate total of £115 million.

The sale opened with Lucian Freud’s portrait of his daughter Bella, which quietly hammered at £350,000, just above its low estimate. It was followed by his still life of a lemon, which hammered for £1,050,000 (£1,331,000 after fees), and a final, more unusually surreal Freud painting of a birdcage, The Birds of Olivier Larronde, which landed quietly at its low estimate, £1,016,000 after fees. All three lots carried third-party guarantees. Several phone bidders pursued Sonia Delaunay’s luminous Rythme Couleur, which hammered just shy of its high estimate at £1.5 million. Next came Paula Rego’s uncannily precise The Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney’s Fantasia, sold on a single bid to the phone at £1.5 million (£1,880,000 after fees).

One of the highlights of the sale, Gerhard Richter’s Schober (Haybarn), was about to hammer at £6 million with Michael Baptiste on the phone, likely at the guarantee price, until a sudden, tense back-and-forth pushed the work higher, closing with another phone bid at £6.9 million. The red Richter abstraction that followed, Abstraktes Bild, opened at £3 million and ultimately sold for £6.5 million hammer (£7.6 million after fees) after being pursued by a woman in the room and several phone bidders.

From there, Meyer moved to the most anticipated top lots of the night: the monumental sculpture King and Queen by Henry Moore. Bidding opened at £6 million and quickly escalated through a back-and-forth of bids and half-bids between the president of Christie’s Europe and Alex Rotter. Two additional phone bidders soon joined the contest, closing at £26,345,000 (with premium), 76 percent above its £15 million high estimate.

More unexpected was the bidding war for Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture Modulación del espacio III (Modulation of Space III) from 1963. Pursued by different regional heads, it hammered at £2.7 million (£3.3 million after fees) after a five-minute bidding war, well above its £800,000-1,200,000 estimate.

This certainly warmed up the room for Kandinsky’s superb Le Ronde Rouge, which, from a starting bid of £8 million, eventually hammered at its low estimate of £10.5 million, in a deal that likely had been prearranged and guaranteed. Even so, the price was significantly below the $20,621,000 the consignor had paid at Sotheby’s in November 2018.

Squarely meeting its estimate, Cy Twombly’s Untitled (Rome) reached £3.3 million. The lively ambroid entanglements of Jean Paul Riopelle then triggered more action, surpassing their high estimate to sell for £2.4 million. Included in the artist’s catalogue raisonné, the work had an extensive exhibition history and had last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s in 2015, when it was acquired by the current consignor for slightly less. Still operating within abstraction but with a more expressive gestural language, a Kazuo Shiraga sold for £1.3 million in the room, well above the $1,390,670 paid by the consignor at Christie’s in 2014.

What followed among the subsequent lots resembled a prearranged script. Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale was placed quite straightforwardly for £460,000 hammer, just above its low estimate once the premium was added. The placement of Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa was similarly orchestrated, sold on the phone by Alex Rotter with no competing bids for its £3.5 million low estimate (£4.4 million after fees), covered by a third-party guarantee. The same pattern held for the early Michelangelo Pistoletto mirror from his 1968 show at Galleria Attico, which sold for £1 million (low estimate) after being backed by a third-party guarantee, as well as the guaranteed Alberto Giacometti’s Buste d’Homme, hammered at £900,000 (low estimate). Equally direct was the Picasso top lot, which sold for £7 million hammer (£8.5 million with premium), safely secured by its third-party guarantor.

When the gavel passed to the dynamic and multilingual Yü-Ge Wang, she switched fluidly between German and English while selling Emil Nolde’s Blumengarten (Bonde) for £1.3 million, below its £1.5 million low estimate but likely placed through its third-party guarantee. The consignor had acquired the work at a Sotheby’s auction in Munich in 1988 for $730,785.

With alternating jumps between contemporary and modern, the fresh-to-market Peter Doig snowy landscape Tour de Charvet that followed also landed safely within estimate, achieving £3,222,000 with its guarantee. Renoir’s Rochers de l’Estaque, last shown in public at the National Gallery’s 2007 exhibition dedicated to his landscapes, just met its £600,000 low estimate, selling to an absentee bid (£762,000 with fees), as did David Hockney’s Study for Olympic Poster, which hammered at £500,000 (£635,000 with premium), still well above the £169,250 paid when it was acquired at Sotheby’s London in 2012.

Squarely meeting its mid estimate, the playful masterpiece Imaginative Play I by Caroline Walker sold for £215,900. Painted in 2024, the work had already passed through two private collections since being sold by the now-defunct Stephen Friedman gallery, further evidence of the continuing momentum around the painter.

There was slightly more action with Marc Chagall’s Le coq peintre à Paris, which fetched £1.1 million (£1,392,000 with premium), with Christie’s bidding live against the phones. But a few lots later, his Tête de cheval passed at £700,000 despite Yü-Ge’s attempt to promote it as a fitting acquisition in the year of the horse. Other unsold works included a Georg Baselitz drawing, which stalled at £260,000, and a painting by British painter Gerald Laing, offered with an estimate of £1-1.5 million.

Toward the end, the 2016 raw and playful oil and collage on canvas Tube Girl by Rose Wylie, bought from her show at Zwirner, exceeded its high estimate, fetching £152,400 with premium, as the 91-year-old artist is currently celebrated with an extensive exhibition at the Royal Academy on view through the end of May. Closing the sale was another work by Eduardo Chillida, which this time met its low estimate without much bidding, achieving £533,400 after fees.

Miró, Magritte and Tanning and the enduring momentum for the Surreal

The evening continued with the 26 lots of The Art of Surreal sale, which closed with a total of £42,978,950, after lot 116 was withdrawn and the estimate for its top lot, Magritte’s Les grâces naturelles, was readjusted to £7-10 million. Even so, the sale’s final total more than doubled the £22.9-35 million presale estimate.

The sale opened with a guaranteed £1.4 million result for Magritte’s La grande marée and £406,400 for a work by Victor Brauner. Considerable interest greeted the next highlight, Joan Miró’s Peinture from the Renker Collection. A more-than-five-minute bidding contest began with an immediate bid in the room at £1.5 million, soon challenged by another woman in the room and several phone bidders—“as in the old days.” The work eventually sold to a gentleman in the front row for £3.9 million hammer (£4.8 million after fees). The fresh-to-auction masterpiece had last been seen publicly at the artist’s 1962 exhibition at the Paris Musée National d’Art Moderne. From the same collection, the surreal Picasso Figure, dated 1929, also triggered a prolonged bidding battle, closing at £2.1 million hammer (£2,612,000 final), well above its more modest £600,000-800,000 estimate.

This led Meyer to the top lot, René Magritte’s Les grâces naturelles, which opened with a £5 million bid and eventually hammered at its newly readjusted low estimate of £7 million (£8.8 million with premium) with Ottavia Marchitelli on the phone and little additional action, likely secured by its third-party guarantor or a prearranged bid. Arriving at auction after 25 years in the same private collection—bought from the Brussels-based Xavier Hufkens gallery—the mysteriously vibrant canvas has been on long-term loan to the Magritte Museum in Brussels since its opening in 2009. Featured in the artist’s catalogue raisonné and in Michel Draguet’s 2009 publication Magritte, son oeuvre, son musée, the work has appeared in major institutional surveys, including the landmark retrospective at SFMOMA in 2000 and the 2005 exhibition organized by BA-CA Kunstforum, which later traveled to Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

The Magritte that followed, L’esprit et la forme, sold after a few bids for £762,000. Later in the auction, another Magritte, La Jeunesse Illustrée, sold for £2.3 million while his fascinatingly elusive Shéhérazade reached £952,500. In between, the Max Ernst life-cast La Parisienne sold for £952,500, and André Masson’s L’œuf de verre sold for £177,800.

One of the absolute stars of the night was Dorothea Tanning’s Children’s Games, which soared well above its £1-2 million estimate, hammering after a 10-minute battle at £3.8 million (£4.7 million with fees), more than doubling its high estimate and setting a new auction record for the artist as her market continues to be reevaluated. The result was supported by the work’s remarkably extensive exhibition history and literature. An emblematic example of the artist’s singular symbolic imagination, it was included in the major survey dedicated to Tanning at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2019, which traveled to Tate Modern in London before the work went on long-term loan at the Dallas Museum of Art. Another auction record of the night was set by Toyen’s Le devenir de la liberté, which achieved £3.7 million from its £1.2-2.3 million estimate after a prolonged back-and-forth between multiple phones and Christie’s Live.

More action and competition were ignited by the enigmatic suspended mystery of Paul Delvaux’s La Ville lunaire, which exceeded its high estimate, fetching £3.5 million at the hammer (£4.3 million with fees) against a £2-3 million estimate. Marchitelli also secured Max Ernst’s Sun over the desert, which achieved £863,600 with premium after a few bids. Another iconic example of Delvaux’s surreal imagination, long held in the same Belgian collection, achieved £1,880,000 on the phone.

When the gavel passed to Veronica Scarpati for the second part of the sale, it took some time for her to move Joan Miró’s Personnages devant la lune slightly above its low estimate, closing at £660,000 (£838,200 after fees), while the once-Breton-owned Tournez quickly achieved £825,500, just above its high estimate. Plenty of interest—with bids on the book and a bidder from the Czech Republic—greeted Dalí’s watercolor Le conseil des dieux, which ultimately went to the £240,000 commission bid.

The evening closed with the Modern Visionaries – The Roger and Josette Vanthournout Collection sale, which brought an additional £40,317,750 to the auction house, with only one guarantee and no withdrawn lots. The sale was led by Pablo Picasso’s Nu debout et femmes assises (1939), which achieved £7 million, followed by strong results for two sculptures: Henry Moore’s Goslar Warrior (1973-74), which realized £4.6 million, and Jacques Lipchitz’s Jeune fille à la tresse (conceived in 1914), which sold for £2 million, nearly three times its high estimate.

Nordic highlights in Phillips’ strategically managed evening sale

The big night of the marquee sales in London on March 5 had, in fact, begun earlier, at 4 p.m., with Phillips’ Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaling £12,964,910. The auction saw 90 percent of the remaining 27 lots sell, after two were withdrawn before the sale and five failed to meet their estimates, ending unsold. While several works hammered below estimate, many were backed by guarantees, allowing the auction house to move forward smoothly and maintain a buoyant atmosphere despite noticeably quieter, more cautious bidding. Notably, the sale featured a strong presence of Nordic artists, with several works by Scandinavian and Danish figures, as well as consignments from the region, suggesting that Phillips’ European team is strategically tapping into less-saturated regional markets.

The evening opened with a burst of energy from the ultra-contemporary segment. A cinematic 2023 painting by the always sold-out Joseph Yager—purchased from the artist’s exhibition at Project Native Informant the same year—jumped quickly from a £26,000 priority bid to hammer at £105,000, more than doubling its £35,000-55,000 estimate and confirming continued demand for the young artist’s work.

From there, demand proved more cautious for other recent contemporary market favorites, even those with solid institutional visibility. Derek Fordjour’s Six Count, acquired from Luce Gallery in 2018, sold on the phone for £280,000, below its £300,000 low estimate, though it reached £361,200 after fees. Tracey Emin’s An Insane Desire for You landed exactly at its £600,000 low estimate (£774,000 with premium), despite the renewed attention surrounding the artist as Tate Modern in London hosts her largest-ever survey, spanning 40 years of work and running through August. Rebecca Warren’s Fascia V sparked a brief but lively contest between three phone bidders before hammering for £420,000.

The sale also featured the first lot from the highly anticipated collection of former U.S. ambassador to Denmark John Loeb Jr., considered the most important collection of Danish art outside museums. Anna Ancher’s Young Girl Reading a Letter (Ung pige, der læser et brev) opened with several priority bids already above its £30,000-50,000 estimate, climbing from £55,000 to hammer at £120,000, or £154,800 with fees, setting a new world auction record for the artist.

The sale’s top lot, Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Interior, performed solidly, opening at £1 million and hammering at £1.3 million (£1.6 million with premium) against a £1.5-2 million estimate. Demand, however, remained selective. His The Church of St. Peter, Copenhagen, which followed, failed to reach its £600,000 low estimate and went unsold, as did a Bertha Wegmann work that stalled at £140,000. One of the livelier moments of the evening came with Banksy’s Happy Choppers, which hammered at £1.2 million (£1.52 million with fees), surpassing its high estimate.

Beyond these moments, bidding remained measured throughout the sale, despite the energetic efforts of Phillips’ young auctioneer Henry Hingley, whose charming delivery helped keep the room engaged. Anselm Kiefer’s monumental Right Wing, Left Wing opened at £280,000 before hammering at £400,000, likely heading to its guarantor at the low estimate. Georg Baselitz’s Die Wildnis im Zimmer also hammered below estimate at £500,000, finishing at £645,000 with premium, just above its £600,000 low estimate. Antony Gormley’s Drawn Apart sold for £250,000, again below estimate. Further reflecting the cautious tone, Andy Warhol’s iconic Mao hammered at £1.3 million after touring internationally.

Despite the controversy sparked by the ecological impact of his fireworks performance in the Tibetan Himalayas, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Black Sunflower sold below estimate for £240,000. Julie Mehretu’s color aquatint with spitbite on paper hammered at £160,000—well below its £250,000 low estimate—reaching £206,400 after the premium was added. A work by Hans Hartung passed at £190,000, as did Gerhard Richter’s Fuji (839-13), which failed to find a buyer after stalling at £300,000 against a £350,000-550,000 estimate. Toward the end, a quieter but steady result came from James Ensor’s delicate Fleurs fines, formes légères, which met expectations, selling for £245,100 with premium.

Taken together, the evening sales illustrated a market that remains highly selective and increasingly structured around the choreography of auction performance. While a handful of new records sparked genuine bidding, guarantees quietly guided much of the rest of the show—particularly among the top lots. The spectacle served as a reminder that the auction business has become remarkably adept at preserving market confidence through meticulously calibrated scripts and prearranged deals, even as the world beyond the saleroom seems to be steadily coming apart.

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