Impressionists and modernists break records in New York

A total of 422.1 million dollars has been sent to the accounts of Sotheby’s: bronze Chariot by Alberto Giacometti (101 million) and Tete by Amedeo Modigliani (70.7 million) became the top-selling items. This is the highest sum fetched over the 270-year-long history of the company. On the whole, 73 items took part in the auction, but only 58 ones were sold.

Chariot is a firm creation of the sculptor, a female silhouette-nail, which gets thinner until it disappears and becomes a stele on an unstable two-wheeled pedestal.

It is considered that this image became an allegory of the World War II for the sculptor. Giacometti created six copies of this sculpture: the work that was sold at the auction was passed from one generation of one family to another. Four remaining versions of Chariot are preserved in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the artist’s fund in Kunsthaus Zurich, and New York Museum of Modern Art.

The fifth copy just as that, which has been sold, is a part of a private collection, reportedly by gazeta.ru.

Tete by Amedeo Modigliani looks like an African mask and turned out to be the most expensive work of the Italian expressionist artist that was sold from an auction: an anonym paid 70.7 million dollars to buy it. Four years ago in Paris a similar Tete also broke the records at the Christie’s auction: the item was sold for 59.5 million dollars.

The third top lot of Sotheby’s was Vincent Van Gogh’s still life Red Poppies and Daisies, one of the latest works of the post-impressionist artist, which was sold for 61.8 million dollars.

Van Gogh paid with this picture for treatment to Dr. Paul Gachet, under whose care he lived in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris.

The price for Edouard Manet’s picture Spring, which depicts actress Jeanne Demarsy with a bonnet, turned out to be record-breaking as well. It was sold for 65.1 million dollars (although at first its cost was estimated at 25-35 million dollars) at Christie’s auction, which took place late on November 5.

The canvas was supposed to become a part of the cycle “Seasons,” but Manet died, having finished only Spring and Autumn (the latter is preserved at the Museum of Fine Arts in Nancy). This is the highest price paid for any work of the artist.