On Wednesday, the painting "L'empire des lumières" by René Magritte, sold for £59.4 million ($79.8 million) at Sotheby's, breaking the Belgian Surrealist's previous auction record. That amount is more than quadruple his previous high of $26.8 million, set in 2018 at Sotheby's for the artist Le Principe du Plaisir (1937).
Three bidders battled for L'empire des lumières, which was sold during an evening sale at the house's London headquarters (1961). It was projected to earn £45 million ($60 million) thanks to an in-house guarantee. The sculpture sold for £51.5 million ($68.9 million), with bidding starting at £40 million ($53 million) and going to a buyer on the phone with Alex Branczik, Sotheby's chairman of modern and contemporary art in Asia. On the phone with Katia Nounou Boueiz, Sotheby's head of United Arab Emirates, and Sam Valet, a senior Impressionist and modern art specialist based in London, that client beat out two other determined buyers.
"It's not a masterpiece to let go," Sotheby's auctioneer Helena Newman said before lowering the gavel in the final minutes of the nearly 10-minute-long fight. The painting shows a streetscape that looks to be both day and night at the same time. Its composition is one that the artist returned to multiple times throughout the 1950s and ’60s.
The painting was sold from the collection of Anne-Marie Crowet Gillon, a French baroness and the daughter of lawyer Pierre Crowet, one of Magritte's most important backers. Gillon, who met Magritte when he was 16 years old, went on to pose for several of his paintings. Since 2009, it has been on loan to the Musée Magritte in Brussels.
Selena Mattei
