René Magritte (1898-1967) entered the very select club of artists whose work exceeded $100 million, joining Picasso, Klimt, Basquiat and Leonard da Vinci.
In New York, shortly before 8 p.m., Tuesday, November 19, in the Christie's auction room, next to the Rockefeller Center, a copy of the Belgian painter's “Empire of Lights” series was sold for $121 million. (114 million euros) fees and taxes included, after ten minutes of struggle between bidders. This painting is a play of shadow and light, which represents the paradoxical image of a house at night, only lit by a street lamp, under a blue daytime sky.
This 1957 work came from the collection of the Romanian-born interior designer Mica Ertegun. Died at the end of 2023 at the age of 97, she formed it with her husband, Ahmet Ertegun (1923-2026), founder of Atlantic Records and music mogul in the United States for decades. The painting, acquired in 1968, had sat for years in their New York living room, a place for parties and receptions, in absolutely impeccable condition.
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On this centenary of the publication of Manifesto of surrealism by André Breton, surrealism sells well. Other Magritte paintings that were not part of the “Mica” collection found buyers – another copy from the “Empire of Lights” series for $16 million excluding taxes and fees, a version of the “Search for the absolute” for 7 million dollars and the canvas Hunters at the Edge of Nightfor 8 million, however in the lower range of the estimate. “People have a better understanding of surrealism these days”Israeli art dealer based in London and New York Daniella Luxembourg, whose gallery is organizing a major Magritte exhibition in spring 2025, told the Bloomberg agency.
Good news for sales and auction houses
Guillaume Cerutti, the managing director of Christie's, was delighted after the sale: “It’s an absolute record for a Magritte. It's 40 million [de dollars] more than a similar sale a few years ago. » In 2022, a smaller version of “The Empire of Lights” went for $79 million at Sotheby's in London. The success of the New York sale was never in doubt: it was guaranteed by a third party to the tune of $95 million, according to Bloomberg. However, the figure reached is good news.
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