Magritte Painting The Empire of Light Sells for Record $80 Million
(Bloomberg) -- A surrealist painting by René Magritte sold for a record £59.4 million ($79.7 million) at Sotheby's London on Wednesday, more than doubling the artist's record at auction.
The 1961 painting, L'empire des lumières (The Empire of Light), which depicts a darkened street and house with lit windows underneath a sunny, day-time sky, carried an estimate in excess of $60 million. The result makes the painting the second-most expensive in USD to ever sell publicly in London, according to Sotheby's. Measured in GBP, the auction house says it is London's most expensive, ever.
The work's consignor, Anne-Marie Crowet Gillon, bought it directly from Magritte, and has had it in her family's collection ever since. It's one of 17 paintings depicting a similar setting. (The story goes that Magritte exhibited one at the 1954 Venice Biennale and it was promised to four buyers, one of whom was Peggy Guggenheim. To appease his collectors, he just kept making more.)
Today, works from the series are in the collections of MoMA, and the Guggenheim in New York, the Menil Collection in Houston, and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
Until Wednesday, Magritte's record at auction had stood at $28.8 million, when his 1937 painting Le Principe du Plaisir sold at Sotheby's New. York in November, 2018.
In 2017, another of the Empire of Light series sold for $20.6 million at Christie's in New York.
The work's buyer was not immediately known, though the winning bid was taken by Alex Branczik, Sotheby's chairman of modern and contemporary art in Hong Kong.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
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