Haute Living
CHRISTIE'S LONDON EVENING AUCTION OF POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART TOTALS £80.6 MILLION/ $126.5 MILLION/ €96.1 MILLION
Francis Bacon's Portrait of Henrietta Moraes
realises £21.3 million
London - Christie's evening auction of Post-War & Contemporary Art totaled £80,576,100 ($126,504,477 / €96,127,287) selling 95 percent by value and 89 percent by lot. This is the second highest total for the category at Christie's London. The top lot of the sale was Francis Bacon's Portrait of Henrietta Moraes which sold for £21.3 million.
Combined with Post-War & Contemporary art offered from Living With Art: A Private European Collection on 9th and 10th February, sales in the category this month have realised £96.6 million to date.
Francis Outred, Christie's Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art, Europe commented: "I am thrilled with the outstanding results of our evening auction of Post-War & Contemporary Art, the second highest total in these rooms for the category, only surpassed by the June 2008 auction at the height of the market (£ 86.2 million). Following the exceptional success of the Henry Moore last week, the best of British was completed by the Francis Bacon, 'Portrait of Henrietta Moraes' which achieved over 20 million pounds. Having had only two owners in its near 50 year history, the work had not been on the open market before and had not been seen in public for almost twenty years. As a result it created a fierce battle of six telephone bidders to achieve its over-estimate price."
Read more :http://www.christies.com/features/auctions/0212/pwc-london/
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