An early work by French impressionist Claude Monet sold for a record $41.4 million in New York on Tuesday at an auction
NEW YORK: An early work by French impressionist Claude Monet sold for a record $41.4 million in New York on Tuesday at an auction that nevertheless suggested the art market is feeling the effects of the stuttering US economy.
Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris and described by Christie’s auction house as a “truly exceptional picture,” was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder.
“It is the quintessential early Monet. We will not see another one this good for a long while, I don’t suppose, unless this one lures a few out,” Christie’s honorary chairman and the evening’s auctioneer, Christopher Burge, said.
The previous record for the artist stood at $36.5 million. However, two other works by Monet as well as works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir and Matisse failed to find buyers, adding fuel to concerns that the art market is feeling the pinch of the US housing and credit crises.
Burge gave an upbeat picture of the sale, describing the market for good impressionist works as “alive and well,” despite the total sales falling just below the auction house’s low estimate of $287 million. “I’m extremely pleased with the results tonight because I think we did extremely well,” he said after the auction.
Besides the Monet, records were also set for French impressionist Auguste Rodin, Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti and Spanish surrealist Joan Miro. Rodin’s bronze Eve, grand modele — version sans rocher, went for $18.9 million to a telephone bidder, while Giacometti’s Grande femme debout II, also a bronze, was bought by the Gagosian art gallery for $27.4 million.
Miro’s La caresse des etoiles, meanwhile sold to an anonymous bidder for $17 million. Burge played down the significance of so many leading artists and some 24 per cent of the evening’s lots failing to sell. “I think where things didn’t sell it was either because the works were unusual or they were possibly overpriced, or we were going for big estimates,” he said, singling out Van Gogh’s Route aux confins de Paris.
“That was a Paris period picture and they’ve never been the most expensive and we did go with a fairly grown-up estimate on that particular one and I think that was too much for the market,” he said.
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