On Monday night, Christie’s kicked off its fall marquee auctions with back-to-back auctions in a packed house full of collectors and advisers ready to bid. The sale, which saw at least a dozen lots spark bidding wars, brought in a combined $690 million with fees. That total was well above the pre-sale low estimate of $534.7 million, though it did come in just over 5 percent below the pre-sale high of $731.5 million.
The Robert and Patricia Ross Weiss sale, composed of 18 lots from the collection of the late former chairman of the supermarket chain Weis Markets, started the night with works spanning some of the 20th century’s most important movements, from Cubism to Abstract Expressionism, including pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Mark Rothko. The grouping offered on Monday was just a small, high-value amount of the Weiss material Christie’s is selling this week, with more than 60 additional lots still to come across several more sales.
The 62-lot 20th century sale that followed the Weis auction included more works by Matisse and Picasso, along with pieces by Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Marc Chagall, and Alberto Giacometti, albeit generally less important examples from those artists’ oeuvres.
The night’s combined total of $690 million on 79 lots was a 41 percent increase over the equivalent sale in May, which brought in $489 million with fees from the 20th century sale and a separate auction for works from the collection of Len and Louise Riggio.The equivalent double-header sale in November 2024 generated $486 million on 72 lots, 19 of which came from a single-owner sale of works from the collection of designer and philanthropist Mica Ertegun.
The sell-through rate for Monday’s auctions was 97 percent by value and 96 percent by lot, according to Christie’s. Only one lot was withdrawn—Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Femme assise de profil vers la gauche (1890), at Lot 63—but three failed to sell. Joan Miró’s Les flammes du soleil rendent hystérique la fleur du désert (1938) and Franz Kline’s Placidia (1961) each received a handful of bids before stalling out at $7.5 million, leaeding auctioneer Adrien Meyer to declare both works passes. The 1933 Man Ray photograph Sade, Pas Terminé, 20 lots later, received two bids before Meyer pulled it.
Still, there was a clear depth of bidding, with 16 lots hammering at or above their high estimates, often after long back-and-forths between Christie’s specialists and active bidders in the room, patiently referred first by Meyer and, then for the final 20 lots, a bit more brusquely by senior specialist David Kleiweg de Zwaan.
Adviser Ralph DeLuca (who is also Sotheby’s vice chairman for popular culture), seated near the front of the room, was at the center of several of the longest bidding wars on behalf of a client, including a seven-minute contest between him, Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan, and deputy chairman Conor Jordan for Henri Matisse’s 1937 painting Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre). The work from the Weis collection ended up going to Jordan’s bidder for $32.3 million on a $27.5 million high estimate. (All prices are with buyer’s premium unless otherwise noted.)
Lot 3A, Henri Matisse’s 1937 painting Figure et bouquet (Tête ocre). It sold for $32.3 million with fees.
DeLuca got his revenge just a few lots later, beating out Alex Rotter, Christie’s global president, for the Max Ernst chess sculpture Le roi jouant avec la reine (1944/61) for $20.2 million on a $18 million high estimate. (For reference, another edition of that work sold for $24.4 million at Christie’s Paul Allen sale in 2022.)
He also came away the victor on the most intense auction battle of the evening, for Marc Chagall’s Le songe du Roi David (1966), from the collection of the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. After sparring with Rotter, senior London-based specialist Michelle McMullan, and Cyanne Chutkow, deputy chairman of Impressionist and modern art, DeLuca won the work for $26.5 million with fees on a $12 million high estimate.
“There was a lot of money waiting on the sidelines [before tonight]. More a lack of confidence than a lack of capital. Tonight I felt confidence has returned to art,” DeLuca told ARTnews after the sale. DeLuca confirmed that the Ernst and the Chagall were purchased for clients. Of the Matisse, he said, “Can’t win them all!”
Rotter, for his part, seemed invigorated by Monday’s activity. “This felt like what an auction should feel like,” he told ARTnews after the sale. “I feel the tide rising. The collections added a lot of depth. Some of the prices really came down and that resulted in engagement from collectors.”
Lot 25A, Marc Chagall’s Le songe du Roi David (1966). It sold for $26.5 million with fees
While the bidding activity was no doubt encouraging, and made for a lively sale, 38 lots hammered squarely in their pre-sale range, often seeing spirited bidding right up until the low estimate threshold was reached. After that, the bidding petered out.
The final lot of the Weis sale, Mark Rothko’s striking No. 31 (Yellow Stripe), from 1958, was a typical example. After bathing the audience in a red-orange light mimicking the painting, Meyer started the bidding at $34 million. Rotter, vice-chairman Katharine Arnold, and a Connecticut-based online bidder quickly pushed the bidding to the work’s $50 million estimate. Rotter’s buyer dropped out, and Meyer coaxed along the online bidder for a few more bids before Arnold sealed the deal at a hammer price of $53.5 million. While that was good for $62.2 million with fees, making the work the top one of the evening, the frenzy just moments earlier seemed to portend a more explosive result.
There were also more than a handful of works hammering below estimate—21 in total, not including the works that failed to sell. Many of those works were by some of the most esteemed artists on offer, including Monet’s Falaise des Petites-Dalles and Nymphéas (1881), Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu assis (ca. 1908), Edgar Degas’s La Coiffure (La Toilette), ca. 1892–95, J.M.W. Turner’s Ehrenbreitstein, or The Bright Stone of Honour and the Tomb of Marceau, from Byron’s ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’, and Picasso’s Le Baigneur and La Lecture (Marie-Thérèse), from 1957 and 1932, respectively.
Evan Beard, president of secondary market gallery Level & Co., told ARTnews that the mixed results lie more with the estimates than the works themselves. “A healthy, rational market,” he said. “Estimates that got pushed underperformed, and the great things flew. But it’s not 2021, when everything flew.” He described the environment as now being “more selective.”
The sale concluded with Picasso’s Mère et enfant (1965) hammering for $100,000 over its low estimate at $4.1 million after half a dozen bids. With fees, the work came to $5 million, garnering a hearty round of cheers and claps, after a two-and-a-half hour sale that sustained bidding energy throughout.
Before the sale began, Christie’s chairman and former CEO Guillaume Cerutti noted to ARTnews that the first sale of the week sets the tone. If that’s the case, consider Monday a tentative step in the right direction—the crowd was there and bidders were diving into the water. But, as Beard put it, this isn’t 2021 anymore.
“For the first time in a while we have the quality we didn’t have for a while,” Cerutti said. “There have been good vibes all week.”
