SOTHEBY’S TRIUMPHS / SALE OF PABLO PICASSO’S " DORA MAAR AU CHAT " FOR $95.2 MILLION

Thursday, 04 May 2006 11:39

New York, NY - May 3, 2006: At Sotheby’s, in a packed salesroom,at least four bidders on the telephone competed with a bidder in the room who prevailed after a lengthy and spirited battle.  The " Dora Maar Au Chat " portrait was included in a sale of Impressionist and Modern Art which brought $207,564,800, the highest total for a sale in this category at Sotheby’s since May 1990 (est. $137.2/190.8 million*).

The evening sale also featured a spectacular painting from Henri Matisse’s celebrated Nice period – Nu couché vu de dos - which sold for $18,496,000, a record for the artist at auction.  An auction record was also established for Dame Barbara Hepworth, whose monumental sculpture, Three Obliques (Walk-In), sold for $1,128,000.  The sale was 96.9% sold by value and 87.3% sold by lot, with 27 lots, nearly half of the 55 offered, selling for more than $1 million.

"The outstanding price achieved tonight by Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar is a reflection of this quality-driven market," commented David Norman, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide.  "Works of this caliber are so remarkably rare that we could wait another generation before we see such a great Picasso appear at auction, "There is a diverse group of collectors supporting the market – all industries, all nationalities, with immense purchasing power.  We saw a great depth of bidding on the majority of the works offered tonight.  The strength of the sale did not rest upon one single collection; rather it was made up of individual works from individual collections."

In addition to Dora Maar au chat, competition was particularly fierce for other works by Picasso.  Arlequin au baton, from 1969, one of the finest latter-period works by the artist to appear at auction in recent memory sold for $10,096,000; his Femme assise dans un fauteuil, consigned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, sold for $6,736,000; and his Sylvette of 1954 made $4,608,000.

As many as six bidders competed for one of André Derain’s most accomplished Fauvist landscapes, Paysage à l’Estaque, driving the final price to $6,848,000, surpassing the high estimate of $5 million.  Also by Derain was Musique, a lyrical watercolor, which sold for $598,400, a record for a work on paper by the artist at auction and well above the pre-sale estimate of $250/350,000.

Vincent van Gogh’s Les Toits from 1882, attracted strong interest from bidders both in the room and on the telephone selling for $4,720,000. Depicting the view from the artist’s attic window overlooking the rooftops of The Hague, the work on paper had been estimated to sell for $2.5/3.5 million.

Works by the Impressionist Claude Monet were also sought after this evening.  His Près Monte-Carlo, a vivid landscape in blues and greens capturing Monet’s love of the light and colors of the Mediterranean, attracted competition from six determined bidders, ultimately selling for $5,056,000 - well above its pre-sale high estimate of $3 million.  The same number of bidders also competed for the artist’s, Azalées Blanches en Pot, which made $1,920,000. Similarly, Pierre Bonnard's La Partie de Balle made $912,000 against a pre-sale estimate of $400/ 600,000

Note : The world record for a painting at auction was also set at Sotheby’s and by Picasso when his Garçon à la Pipe sold for $104.2 million in May 2004.

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