Defining British Art: Christie’s Anniversary Sale Marks 250 Years
The auction house’s momentous sale set world auction records at over Dhs480 million
Christie’s latest auction: Defining British Art: Evening Sale attracted global attention featuring works sold from a range of British art across four centuries. The auction’s registered bidders hailed from thirty-two nations spanned across four continents.
World auction records were set at the Defining British Art: Evening Sale, which celebrated the 250th anniversary of Christie’s. The auction was led by Henry Moore’s 1951 modernist sculpture, Reclining Figure: Festival, sold at Dhs119,537,042. Additional sculptures sold included Lynn Chadwick, R.A. Return to Venice for Dhs7,984,515 setting a new world auction record, and Sea Form (Atlantic) a 1964 bronze sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth sold at Dhs17,194,877. View on the Stour near Dedham by the pioneer of British Modernism, John Constable R.A., achieved Dhs67,893,448 which marked the second highest price sold at auction from the artist. Bridget Riley’s painting: Untitled (Diagonal Curve) from 1966, sold at Dhs20,915,808. Auctioned for the first time in 100 years, Golden Hours, a key work of British Aestheticism, painted circa 1864, by Frederic, Lord Leighton reached a new world auction record at Dhs15,822,815. The iconic British figurative painter Francis Bacon’s Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe, from 1968 sold at Dhs97,666,639. Marking its debut at auction was Portrait of Lucy Long, Mrs. George Hardinge, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. which achieved Dhs18,225,201. Sir Alfred James Munning’s H.M. the Queen and Aureole in the Paddock at Epsom before the Coronation Cup, sold for five times its estimated price at Dhs10,121,699. A Girl (Pauline Tennant), by the pioneering painter, Lucian Freud from circa 1945 achieved Dhs 11,205,924 marking the second highest price for a work on paper sold by the artist.
Christie’s historic auction set global auction record sales at Dhs480.2 million demonstrating the continued success of the auction house’s leadership in the sale of distinguished art works across the international art world.
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