Cézanne, Feininger works set records at Sotheby's auction
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 9, 2007 | 12:50 PM ET
CBC Arts
A Cézanne still life of a large green melon sold for $25.5 million US at Sotheby's auction of impressionist and modern art in New York on Tuesday, setting a record for a work on paper by Paul Cézanne.
Jesuits III, a 1915 painting by Lyonel Feininger, sold for $23.3 million US, well beyond the previous record for the American-born German cubist artist of $7.7 million US.
A work by French impressionist painter Paul Cézanne entitled Nature morte au melon vert sold for $25.5 million US in New York.
(Alastair Grant/Associated Press)
It shows a Jesuit priest, painted in red ripples, eyeing a seductive woman.
The auction marked a strong start to spring art sales, which will continue over the next month.
There was high demand, Sotheby's said, with 90 per cent of lots finding buyers.
"We're absolutely ecstatic about this sale," David Norman, Sotheby's co-chairman of impressionist and modern art, said in an interview with Reuters.
"It reflected a hunger and thirst in the marketplace for great works. It was a most international pool of buyers."
The Cézanne was sold on behalf of art collector Giuseppe Eskenazi, and was considered the French impressionist artist's most important watercolour to remain in private hands.
Two Picassos sold, Harlequin's Head for $15.16 million US and The Lovers for $14.6 million US.
A Matisse nude, Odalisque Grise et Jaune, estimated at up to $20 million US, sold for a lone bid of $14.7 million US.
Total sales at the Sotheby's auction topped $278 million US.
High-profile auctions
The evening was the first of four high-profile art auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses over the next two weeks.
Christie's estimates its impressionist and modern art auction on Wednesday will fetch as much as $245 million US.
Next week, a Mark Rothko, being sold by David Rockefeller, is expected to sell for $40 million US in Sotheby's auction of contemporary and post-war art.
Works by Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Louise Bourgeois are to be sold next week, as well as the Study of Innocent X by Francis Bacon, which could command more than $30 million US.
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