Anchored by top consignments, fresh-to-market museum-grade masterpieces and excellent provenance, Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction on May 19 closed with a $304 million result, a 98 percent sell-through rate across 45 lots and more than double the total achieved in the equivalent sale in November. The result brings the running combined total for Sotheby’s marquee sales to $839.6 million, following the $433 million achieved by the Mnuchin collection and the Now & Contemporary Evening Auction last week and a successful, buoyant Contemporary Day Auction that achieved $108 million, with 93 percent of 350 lots finding buyers.
The star of the night was the fresh-to-market Henri Matisse, La Chaise Lorraine, from the Barbier-Müller collection. Unseen on the market for more than a century, it was last exhibited at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel in the 2024-25 show “Matisse: Invitation to the Voyage.” Chased by four bidders on the phones for more than 10 minutes, it eventually sold to a buyer bidding with Sotheby’s senior specialist Francis Asquith for $48.4 million against an estimate in excess of $25 million—the second-highest price for any painting by the artist sold at auction. A few lots later, another work by Henri Matisse, La Séance du matin—a lively, harmonious scene of the artist’s favored model of this decade, Henriette Darricarrère, bathed in the Mediterranean—sold to a collector in Asia at its $20 million low estimate.
Also leading the evening was a group of fresh-to-market masterpieces from the collection of “last Surrealist” Enrico Donati, a deeply personal trove assembled by a close friend of the movement’s main participants. Three works from the collection generated a combined total of $58.9 million, bringing the running total for the Donati collection to an above-estimate $63.2 million, with more works to come in the Modern Day Auction and additional African and Oceanic masks and artifacts set to be offered in the Art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas sale on June 18. The highly anticipated Pablo Picasso, Arlequin (Buste) (1909), soared to $42.6 million, surpassing its estimate of more than $40 million. The artist’s signature early Cubist work was acquired by Donati through dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and remained in his collection for more than six decades. Another highlight was Wassily Kandinsky’s Rote Tiefe (1925), painted at the height of his Bauhaus period, squarely met its $12-18 million estimate, landing at $14.5 million with fees, secured by both a guarantee and an irrevocable bid. Later in the auction, Yves Tanguy’s Aux Aguets le jour also rapidly climbed past its high estimate of $1.2 million to sell for $1.8 million with fees. Donati and Tanguy were particularly close, having moved to New York together in 1939. The work was gifted directly from the artist to Donati in exchange for one of his drawings.
The evening kicked off with a pair of “Carcasse” Chenets by Diego Giacometti from the Wingate collection, surpassing its high estimate after being pursued by five bidders to achieve $512,000 with fees. The result was immediately followed by Wassily Kandinsky’s signature pastel-toned Zwei schwarze Streifen (Two Black Stripes), dating to the year of the artist’s major retrospective at the Staatliches Museum in Saarbrücken (also the year Will Grohmann published the first substantial monograph on his work). With only two bidders going back and forth, it landed at its low estimate, selling for $2.1 million with fees, likely to its guarantor.
Next up was another highlight from the Wingate collection: a vibrant red-and-orange work on paper by Mark Rothko, dated 1976. Soaring beyond its $5-7 million estimate, it sold for $9.3 million, setting a new benchmark for a 1959 work on paper by the artist. The market for Rothko works on paper has been particularly strong in recent years, with all the artist’s top 10 prices for paper-mounted works achieved since 2017, including the world record set at Sotheby’s in November 2023. Contributing to this momentum was a major institutional show “Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 2023-2024, which brought together more than 100 works on paper, many shown for the first time. It then traveled to the National Museum in Oslo in 2024, marking the first major presentation of Rothko’s work in the Nordic region. The result also brought the combined total for Rothko works sold across auction houses this season to $230.5 million, just as the artist is the subject of a major exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence that traces Rothko’s “special bond” with the city and his connection to the Italian artistic tradition.
Other works from the Wingate collection also surpassed expectations. Chased fiercely by three bidders, Alberto Giacometti’s Buste d’homme (dit New York I) sold just above its high estimate for $3.3 million—the first bronze bust of this type to appear at auction in 25 years. Proving new demand for women artists of the Russian avant-garde, Varvara Stepanova’s Two Figures also surpassed its high estimate, selling for $2.3 million against an estimate of $1.2-1.8 million, pursued by three bidders—the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist at auction. One of the founders of Constructivism, this painting is the first and only work from a series of 38 paintings Stepanova worked on between 1919 and 1921 to come to auction. Examples are held by MoMA, New York, as well as the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Provenance was key to the result, given the number of fakes in Russian Constructivism. This painting remained in the artist’s family until it was sold at Sotheby’s Russian Avant-Garde and Soviet Contemporary Art auction in Moscow in 1988, marking only the second time in its history that it has appeared on the market.
Also from the Wingate collection and another top lot of the evening was a highly anticipated Alberto Giacometti, La Clairière (Composition avec neuf figures), the first cast of this form to come to market since 2018. Chased by three bidders in a prolonged five-minute bidding battle, it eventually sold within estimate for $23.1 million, against an estimate of $18-25 million. Conceived in 1950 and cast in 1960, the sculpture is part of a trio of sculptures from his postwar production that marked a true turning point in Giacometti’s practice, as he began to introduce the elongated, totemic figures that would define his meditation on the fragility of postwar humanity. The work was featured in the large survey “Giacometti 1901-1966” in 1988-89 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Overall, the Wingate collection brought $40.5 million to the sale, just above its pre-sale estimate of $28.5-40.2 million, across six works, which all sold.
Among the top results of the sale was Vincent van Gogh’s La Moisson en Provence, which achieved $29.4 million, squarely meeting its $25-35 million estimate and becoming the second-most-expensive work on paper by the artist. The work last sold at auction in 2003 at Sotheby’s, where the consignor acquired it for $10.3 million, resulting in a return that more than doubled the investment. Van Gogh’s Arles watercolors are rarely seen at auction: of the 11 he made, seven are held in institutional collections.
Sotheby’s evening sale also confirmed the sustained appetite for women Surrealists, or more broadly, for spiritually and mystically attuned feminine visions. Early in the sale, a gouache by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Personnages, doubled its low estimate to sell for $409,600. The work was included in the artist’s last major retrospective, “Sophie Taeuber Arp: Living Abstraction” at MoMA in 2021.
Of the two works by Georgia O’Keeffe offered in the sale, Inside Clam Shell, one of 23 shell paintings dating to 1930 and among only six still in private hands, sold just above its high estimate for $8.9 million. With the majority of paintings from the series held in institutional collections, this was one of only four to ever come to auction and had already appeared at Sotheby’s New York in 2010, when it sold for $3.4 million. A second work by O’Keeffe, Pink Camellia, dated 1945 and from the collection of the Wall Family, sold within estimate for $2.6 million—the second-highest price achieved for a work on paper by the artist and a considerable markup compared to the last time it appeared at auction at Christie’s New York in 2002, when it sold for $449,500.
Some lots later, Leonor Fini‘s Portrait de Alida Valli II surpassed its $700,000-1 million estimate to sell for $1.2 million. One of two paintings by Fini depicting the Italian actress who rose to fame after starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1948), the work was acquired directly by Valli from Fini and then passed down in her family, from whom it was acquired by the present owner. It last appeared in the show “Leonor Fini. Italian Fury” at Galleria Tommaso Calabro in 2022. A series of recent major shows, including the survey staged last year at Palazzo Reale and her representation by Kasmin (now Olney Gleason) has fueled new market momentum for the visionary and histrionic Italian Surrealist, bringing her work to wider international attention. Her prominent presence in Cecilia Alemani’s “The Milk of Dreams” at the 2022 Venice Biennale did the rest in repositioning her among other women Surrealists and overlooked female modernists. Her current record was set last November at Christie’s New York when her self-portrait Dans la tour (Autoportrait avec Constantin Jeleński) (1952) sold for $2.5 million.
Kasmin shows in 2022 and 2024 have also contributed, among other factors, to renewed attention for another visionary late Surrealist, Dorothea Tanning, whose prices have been rising at auction recently. At Sotheby’s last night, her Témoins du drame also fetched above its $1-1.5 million estimate, selling with fees for $2.2 million. Long held in the collection of pioneering New York attorney Sybil Shainwald, the work dates to the years after Tanning’s first exhibition at Julien Levy’s gallery in 1942, when she had begun to be integrated into the Surrealist circles of New York, where she met Max Ernst. The market for Tanning is at an all-time high, with four of the artist’s top prices achieved within the last year, each selling above its high estimate. Her current record was set at Christie’s last May, when Endgame (1944) sold for $2.4 million, surpassing the previous $1.4 million benchmark set by Le mal oublié (1955), also sold at Christie’s in 2022.
Arguably the strongest work by Leonora Carrington on the market this May, her 1966 El retorno de la osa mayor also exceeded its estimate, achieving $1.7 million with fees against an estimate of $1-1.5 million, without any need for guarantees or irrevocable bids. New market attention is also growing for other Surrealists from Latin America, helped by the current Surrealism show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which expands the narrative of the movement’s global reach by focusing on the Americas. Among those artists was Óscar Domínguez, whose 1939 painting Le Printemps (Composition lithochronique) sold within estimate at Sotheby’s last night for $1.4 million. The artist’s current record sits at $5.6 million, set at Christie’s London in 2023.
Other Surrealist works performed within expectations, with René Magritte’s Le Voleur, debuting at auction from the renowned Surrealist collection of French publisher and collector Daniel Filipacchi, selling above its high estimate for $3.8 million with fees. Earlier in the sale, his Femme-bouteille (1955) set a new record for the subject, achieving $974,000 with fees. The work had been in Sybil Shainwald’s collection for more than 25 years.
Overall, these results, much like we saw at Christie’s the night before, confirm the renewed demand for Modern art. As buyers move past the post-pandemic speculative boom, they’re reprioritizing institutionalized names from the history books, prizing in particular freshness to market and excellent provenances, both of which this season’s ongoing generational wealth transfer is bringing back to the rostrum.
At the same time, if Christie’s appeared to place most of its works in the U.S., Sotheby’s saw strong participation from Asia, particularly around its top lots, confirming that more than a regional shift, this is a matter of how well the auction house has built a presence in the region—and Sotheby’s clearly has, through its new Hong Kong headquarters and broader year-round programming across periods and categories. Asian buyers last night were behind the acquisition of the evening’s top lot, the $48.4 million Henri Matisse, La Séance du matin, as well as the $1.8 million Yves Tanguy from the Donati collection, the Schiele drawing Rauenbildnis mit Blauem und Grünem Halstuch sold for $1.9 million and Pablo Picasso’s Tête de femme for $1.5 million. Collectors from the region were also direct underbidders for Paul Klee’s Gartenfigur (Garden Figure) at $4.6 million, Marc Chagall’s La Nappe mauve at $3.4 million, Alberto Giacometti’s Annette d’après nature at $8.1 million and the $8.9 million Georgia O’Keeffe. Meanwhile, an Asian collector under 40 acquired Edgar Degas’s Femme à sa toilette, a signal of both the region’s existing potential and the next-generation collectors entering its market.
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